834 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, MAMU 1, 1859. 
I tv as once a great advocate for worked Roses, and for 
a selection of stocks ; but I found out the foolishness of : 
that idea long since. Of course, we cannot do without 
working all new Roses till they are as cheap as old ones; 
and of course, also, we must work standard Roses as long j 
as there is a call for them. But the moment a Rose is 
common—I do not care a fig what Rose, or what kind of 
Rose it may be—I maintain with all my force and con¬ 
victions, that the best way to have it in a bush, bed, or , 
border, is just as Mr. Paul says is the best for Bacchus. j 
That is the result of my own experience during the last 
forty years. And here I will add the force of an equal | 
amount of experience just two hundred years ago; i 
when an authority of that time says, “the Rose, \ 
the divers and excellent kinds thereof, are one of the j 
chiefest ornaments that enrich our gardenswhen j 
the “ best stocks to inoculate upon, which must be j 
done about Midsummer, are the Damask, White, Franc- ; 
ford, and the wild Eglantine w liicli, as far as I can ; 
make out, meant then the Dog-Rose rather than the j 
Sweet Briar. The true Eglantine was the Sweet Briar ; i 
and the “wild Eglantine,” the Wild Briar, or Dog Rose. 
“ All stocks of budded Roses must be kept from suckers, 
and the buds inoculated as near the ground as may be ; 
that, after one year’s growth, the budded lance may be 
laid in the earth to root.” That is just what we ought to 
do, and attend to propagate our new aud scarce Roses by 
buds or grafts, “as near the ground as maybe;” so as 
to be able to layer them the following year, in order to 
get them on their own roots—because then each of them 
“ becomes a natural tree—one whereof is worth two others 
that are only budded or grafted; for that every sucker 
that comes from them will be of the same kind.” This 
shows that the value of a Rose, on its own roots, was 
only “ worth two others,” about two hundred years ago. 
How much, suppose you, is the relative value of a low- 
worked Rose, and one on its own roots, now-a-clays ? 
The value in the market is not so much as the price of 
“ two others but the practical value of the self-rooted 
Rose is not now under one to fifty, at least, over that of 
a worked Rose, no matter on what stock. 
This is just about the time the best gardeners layered 
their Roses two hundred years back, and in this manner : 
“Eirst prick about a joint, that will lie in the earth, 
many holes with an awl, and then cover it with good 
mould : this done in the spring, and so pegged-down that 
it rise not again—if watered now and then in dry seasons, 
—by autumn will be so rooted as to be removed, and cut 
from its other part behind the roots, and becomes a new 
tree.” In the later history of the Rose, we find the way 
of laying Carnations adopted with it. 
When I was in the Experimental Garden, in Edin¬ 
burgh, the largest growers of Roses in Scotland were the 
Peacocks, in Leith Walk, and all their layering was 
done with the tongue on the upper side of the Rose shoots, 
instead of on the uudor side, as with Carnations ; and the 
reason was, that Rose shoots are so brittle, as to be very 
liable to snap at the bend when the tongue is made on 
the under side. Since then, a friend of mine, up from the 
Perth nurseries, invented a clever aud an easy mode of 
layering Roses. The plan is called after his own name, 
—“ Munro’s system of layering.” Mr. Munro drove the 
point of his knife right through the middle of the shoot, 
where the bend and the roots were to be. This made an 
open slit of an inch, or nearly two inches in length; but 
when he took back the knife, the slit closed again to all 
appearance. He then put a bit of wood in it, and that 
kept it open; and in that open state he bent the shoot, 
and buried it two inches deep in the soil. The roots 
came all round the whole of the slit, so thick as to 
hide the open gap altogether with roots, it is a very 
safe way to layer Roses, and very easy to do; but, I 
should think, the old way of pricking holes through the 
joint, at the bend, for layering was still easier, and quite 
as good, provided the awl is as big as a bodkin, so that 
the holes could not close with new wood till the roots 
came. 
At all events, this is just the time to try all the three 
ways ; and, if I had to layer Roses, I would try the three 
ways on several plants, to see which was really the best 
way for making roots. You cannot hurt a Rose by 
layering every shoot it made last summer, if it made them 
low enough and long enough to get them into the ground. 
The best gardener of the old school said, “ Since all 
(worked) Roses are apt to yield suckers, therefore, the 
surest way to increase any, is gently to bend down part 
of a tree, or the whole, in the spring, as before expressed, 
and lay all the branches as before directed in the ground, 
and apply to them old and well-rotted dung, about the 
places where they are laid. It will make them root the 
sooner; and you, by autumn, have as many rooted trees 
of the same kind as branches laid in the earth, without 
prejudice to the old one ; and when the new ones be cut 
off, may be easily brought to its place again, and the next 
year bear as plentifully as ever. Nor does this hinder 
the bearing of the flowers ; for the branches laid will be 
as plentifully stored as if the tree were erect and not 
laid ; so that they lose neither the profit nor pleasure of 
that year, aud tree-Eoses bearing Roses.” 
All these remarks show, umnistakeably, that people 
knew' the nature of Roses two hundred years back, just 
as well as we do at present, and that the practice of 
worked Roses was as objectionable then as it is now. 
The author from whom I have here quoted, has not 
been referred to in any of our gardening books of this, 
or the last generation, as far as my reading goes.* The 
work is called “The Eiorists’Yade Mecum, by Samuel 
Gilbert,” published in London in 1693. Gilbert was a 
good florist of his day, and the experience of a long life 
is well explained in his “ Yade Mecum.” He is the only 
author, that I have perused, who recommends cuttings to 
be made in the spring of Rinks, Ricotees, and Carnations. 
But he says they will do both in the spring and in the 
autumn, and I should like very much to hear of his plan 
being tried this very spring. These old authors seem, 
from the practical turn of their writings, to have recom¬ 
mended nothing but what they had themselves put in 
practice. If, then, pipings of the Carnation family rooted 
from spring cuttings, there is no reason to doubt but 
that they will do so at the present day ; but, old as the 
practice is, let us try it over again, if only as a novelty. 
I am indebted, for the perusal of the book, to the 
kindness of a reverend gentleman—one of our constant 
readers—in a distant province, who sent it to show what 
Gilbert says about Cyclamens ; and I find he knew' more 
kinds of Cyclamens than we do, only the Persicum breed 
w r as not then introduced. There were double-flowering 
Cyclamens in his day : and the confusion about hedcrce- 
folium, which exists in our time, was prevalent in Gilbert’s 
time, although the proper name w’as given by Clusius at 
the beginning of that century (1600), Oyclaminus hedc-rce 
folio verno tempore Jtorens —that is, the Ivy-leaved Cy¬ 
clamen flowering in the spring. But G ilbert, like some of 
' our own florists—and others more to blame, like M. Van 
Houtte, of Ghent, and Dr. Planchon, who does the botany 
in the “ Flore des Serres,”—gives the “ Ivy-leaved Cy- 
k f* nnf.nnvn ” na ‘‘rtf’ flip thiviyIp nolonv ft 
clamen of autumn,” as “ of the palest purple colour.’ 
The Cyclamen vernum was certainly cultivated by 
Gilbert 200 years ago; for he describes it just as Mr. 
Gordon has clone about the white markings in the leaves 
being so much like the markings of Persicum. “The 
spring Cyclamens,” he writes, “ are preferable before the 
rest; but the double ones most of all, and hardest to be 
got. Their leaves fashioned almost like Coltsfoot leaves, 
* If Mr. Beaton will refer to page 107 of our sixth volume, he will find 
this very hook very particularly mentioned and commended ; and a note, 
that “ it marks the transition period in the history of gardening—it savours 
both of the good time advancing, and of the dark time passing away.” 
We so said, because, although there are in the book many excellent 
directions for cultivation, evidently founded on practice, yet there are, also, 
not a few remnants of superstitious practices recommended.— Eos. 
