THE GARDENING WORLD. 
March 14, 1908. 
190 
gating it by the means above indicated. 
Your aims should be to get young plants 
with very little of the old plant at the roots 
and plants will grow more vigorously when 
they consist wholly of new structures instead 
Of old pieces of root which are liable to de¬ 
cay. If you can succeed in rooting healthy 
small pieces there should be no more diffi¬ 
culty in growing it than in the case of the 
ordinary form which is usually multiplied 
by seeds. 
LAWNS. 
2683. Manures for Improving the 
Grass. 
I would esteem it a favour if you would 
tell me whether a cwt. of Thomson’s fer¬ 
tiliser or several gallons of stable and cow 
■manure liquid would make the best feeder 
for a lawn which has been newly levelled. 
The turf has been lifted and the lawn 
levelled with leaf mould and a top_ dressing 
of ashes, the turf relaid and fifteen cart¬ 
loads of sand (river) and a ton of slaked 
lime brushed into the turf. As the stable 
and cow manure liquid is always at hand 
the lawn could be watered with it in March 
or April if you think that suitable. (M. B., 
Scotland.) 
It does not very much matter what manure 
is used for a lawn provided it includes the 
ingredients which have been found useful 
in stimulating the growth of grass. Be¬ 
sides the manures you mention, there are 
also the artificial fertilisers, nitrate of 
soda, basic slag, which supplies phosphate, 
and kainit, which gives potash. A dressing 
of lawn sand in April or May when the grass 
is dry serves to destroy broad-leaved weeds, 
as well as to stimulate the grass, because it 
contains nitrogen. The leaf mould and ashes 
which you have used as a top dressing would 
be very useful, provided the ashes were 
wood ashes and not coal ashes. The slaked 
lime is also useful for destroying moss 
and stimulating the grass, but we are not 
quite sure what you have applied the fifteen 
cartloads of sand for, unless the soil is 
naturally very heavy and you wish to 
lighten it. If you would use a dressing of 
well-decayed cow manure in the autumn or 
early winter and give ff a scuffle now and 
again with a broom or a wooden rake, it 
would disappear amongst the roots of the 
grass soon after it commences to grow and 
prove a very valuable and lasting fertiliser. 
Prepared manures which you mention are, of 
course, valuable and useful for the purpose 
they are intended. Liquid manure contains 
nitrogen and various other valuable ingredi¬ 
ents of plani food, and you can, of course, 
apply it any time summer or winter. You 
must not apply it during dry weather in 
summer without first well diluting it. In 
wet weather you can put it on as strong as 
you like. It will, of course, answer the pur¬ 
pose admirabl v in stimulating the grass. In 
making enquiries about lawns at any future 
time it would be well to apply in autumn 
or early in winter, so as to give you time 
to apply the materials when the grass is 
resting and not being much used., „ 
ROSES. 
2684. Manure for Roses. 
Would you kindly state which, in your 
opinion, is the best and most suitable arti¬ 
ficial manure for Roses—H.P., H.T., and 
T.—one best calculated to invigorate as well 
as to stimulate bloom. The soil in my Rose 
garden is a deep black loam. (Avonhuest, 
Evesham.) 
The greatest stand-by in the cultivation 
of Roses, according to those who are culti¬ 
vators in a large way, is farmyard manure. 
The most important is pig manure, as it is 
the richest if well made. Cow manure fol¬ 
lows in utility for Roses. Any artificial 
manures that may be given afterwards to 
stimulate the Roses are subsidiary to the 
farmyard manures. In the way of single 
manures some of the most important are 
bone meal, superphosphates, basic slag, ni¬ 
trate of soda and sulphate of ammonia. 
Wood ashes might be added to this list for 
the supply of potash. Several of the com¬ 
pound or all-round manures offered by the 
manure merchants are excellent stimulants 
for Roses from the early spring till towards 
the end of August. If you do not care to 
go in for a supply of these various ingredi¬ 
ents separately you could ask your manure 
merchant to make up the undermentioned 
ingredients proposed by the late E. Tonk, 
who was a great authority on artificial 
manures :—Superphosphate of lime, 12 parts ; 
nitrate of potash, 10 parts ; sulphate of mag¬ 
nesia, 2 parts; sulphate of iron, 1 part; 
and sulphate of lime, 8 parts. Of this mix¬ 
ture you may use 3 lbs. or 1 '4 lbs. to the 
square rod in April. Scatter evenly all 
over the surface and then lightly point it in 
with^a fork. 
2685. Stocks for Exhibition Roses. 
Will you kindly answer the following 
question ? Which is the best way to grow 
Roses for exhibition, from cuttings or 
budded on Brier? ,(A. Ross, Middlesex.) 
The species and hybrids of Roses that have 
not been much improved by comparison with 
the wild ones do best on their own roots. 
The most of the highly-improved modern 
Roses do best when budded or grafted on 
some suitable stock. The Manetti stock is 
best suited to H.P. Roses and is very con¬ 
venient for those who raise Roses because 
budding can be carried on all through the 
season till near the end of September. For 
T. and H.T. Roses the best stock is un¬ 
doubtedly the Brier. This is sometimes 
raised from seeds and at other times from 
cuttings, and the latter make the most useful 
stocks in most cases for the Roses just named. 
This stock is not so suitable for Roses which 
have been raised from species that come from 
China, for instance. Roses come into bloom 
later when budded on such a stock, but they 
are better and more durable than when 
budded upon the Manetti. Notwith¬ 
standing the suitability of the Manetti as 
a stock for H.P.’s, it has the fault of caus¬ 
ing the Roses to go out of bloom about the 
middle of July, whereas those on the Brier, 
although a little later in coming into 
bloom,, continue till August and then com¬ 
mence blooming again in September if the 
varieties employed are in any way inclined 
to bloom a second time. In a general way, 
therefore, the best stock for Exhibition pur¬ 
poses would be the cutting Brier. 
2686. Rose Grafting. 
Will you oblige by informing me whether 
Roses can be grafted out of doors ? I see 
in my Rose book that the stocks should be 
raised in pots and grafted in heat, no clay 
or wax being needed. I have several Brier 
suckers saved from last year and wish to 
know if I can graft them out of doors where 
growing, and if so, whether any clay or 
wax should be used? (Lawyer, Beds.) 
It is not usual to graft Roses out of doors 
tor the simple reason that it is a much 
easier and quicker method to bud them, and 
this work can be continued much later in the 
season, being carried out at a time when 
work is not so pressing as in spring. Your 
Rose book should have said that stocks for 
Roses should be established m pots and 
grafted in heat. In other words, the stocks 
should be potted up in spring and grown 
on through the summer in the pots. The 
soil then gets permeated with roots and the 
Rose may then be expected to succeed well 
when budded. If the top and roots are cut 
away almost simultaneously it does not give 
a stock much chance of forming a union with 
a graft which may be put upon it. Suffi¬ 
cient root pressure can only be obtained by 
having the Roses established ; n pots. It 
is quite true that no clay or wax is needed 
whefi Roses are grafted in heat, because the 
operator also makes sure that the atmosphere 
of the house is sufficiently saturated with 
moisture to make it suitable for propaga¬ 
tion purposes. You could, no doubt, graft 
the suckers of Roses out of doors where they 
are growing, but you will require either 
grafting clay or wax to keep the moisture 
from getting into the cut wood and to keep 
out the air until the union has been formed. 
You may be sure that there is a good reason 
for using clay or wax out of doors and not 
using them when grafting indoors. The 
conditions are so different. Unless- you have 
had some practice at grafting we should ad¬ 
vise you to let the stocks grow until they are 
in suitable condition to be budded, as you 
are more likely to succeed by that method 
than by grafting, if only a beginner at these 
operations. You can commence budding as 
soon as the bark can be easily lifted when 
the proper cuts in it have been made. After 
the bud has been made and inserted the cut 
is tied up with a piece of matting, worsted 
or some similar soft material that will keep 
the bark closed until a union has taken 
place. 
TREES AND SHRUBS. 
2687. Box Edging's Too "Tall. 
I have some Box edging which has been 
neglected very much and has grown i8in. 
high. Can I do anything with it to get 
dwarf plants again? The stems are very 
thick near the ground, with no shoots or 
leaves except at the top. (B. Y., Sheffield.) 
Your Box edging must have been neglected 
for a great number of years. Evidently, 
also, the variety is the common Box usually 
known as Tree Box (Buxus sempervirens), 
which is only used as an edging in those 
places where the soil is very heavy and the 
dwarf Box does not grow freely. The most 
suitable variety for an edging is the dwarf 
Box (B.s. suffruticosa). If you were to apply 
to nurserymen for plants of this dwarf 
variety it grows so slowly that much less 
pruning is required than in the case of the 
tree Box. There'is no difficulty, however, 
in managing either of the varieties if you 
take the trouble to prune the edging - ; n 
spring annually after all danger of frost is 
over. You can, however, deal with the 
plants which you have by digging them up 
and laying them on their sides, so that you 
can cover the roots and stems well up to the 
base of the branches. They may be allowed 
to lie in this condition for a twelvemonth, 
during which time the branches will have 
made roots. You can then pull the plant 
into pieces of suitable size and as even as 
possible, each piece having some roots. An 
edging could then be made up from these 
pieces. Previous to planting, the ground 
should be evenly dug from end to end of the 
line where you intend to put the Box, then 
tread it firmly, lay the garden line straight, 
tightening it at the same time, and then cut 
out a shallow trench alongside of the line 
by means of a spade. The Box can be laid 
in so as to make a close edging, covering it 
with some soil to keep it in position until you 
can fill up the trench and tread it. After it 
has been finished you can then cut it evenly 
along the top with the garden shears, so that 
it will only be about qin. high, or less than 
that if your pieces of Box are sufficiently 
small to admit of it. While waiting for the 
old plants to make roots a temporary wooden 
edging of laths or some other substitute 
could be employed. 
2688. Propagating Rhododendrons. 
What is the best time to propagate Rhodo¬ 
dendrons? Do they require to be grafted. 
