52 PROPAGATION OF THE ROSE. 
The first thing, then, to look to, is to obtain Ranches of the rose 
tree from which we want to produce other plants. If you obtain 
these branches before you are ready to use them, plant the thick end 
in the ground, and do not let the sun come near them, as it would soon 
destroy them; but the}' ought not to be an hour longer than you can 
help unused. Get some bass matting for ties, or very coarse worsted, 
which some prefer, because it gives way better if the bud swells, and 
will stand the weather longer. With a very sharp knife, called a 
tl budding knife,” if you have one, and, if not, any other, and a thin piece 
of hard wood or ivory, like a diminutive paper knife, you may go to 
work. The knife is to slit the bark down to the wood wherever you 
mean to put in the bud, and the piece of hard wood or ivory, with a 
sort of blunt edge like a paper knife, is to divide the bark from the 
wood by running it along under the bark, on each side of the slit. 
Stocks for Budding and Grafting .—The great call for these articles 
has made it somewhat difficult to procure them anywhere but at the 
nurseries; and when you consider you can pick and choose at some 
price or other, the nurseries are the best place for an amateur to pur¬ 
chase. In some parts of the country, the briers are plentiful, but they 
are mostly in hedge rows, and it is somewhat perilous work to grub 
them up without permission; nevertheless, many men get their living 
by collecting these for the nursery grounds. The stocks should be 
procured at the fall of the leaf, and be straight, strong, well rooted and 
compact. These should be placed in rows, eighteen im hes apart from 
each other, and three-foot or three-foot-six-inch vacancies between 
the rows; they should be staked, or, which is better, stakes should 
be put at equal distances, and a rail along them, to which rail all the 
stocks should be fastened by strong .ties, the whole being well trodden 
in after the manner that new roses are planted. 
The preparation of- the roots should be in all res}. ects the same, and 
the stocks are generally shortened before you get them to the height 
their growth best adapts them for. Here they remain till they begin 
to push in spring, when all the lower buds must be rubbed off, leav¬ 
ing the three or four that are highest up the stock to see which will 
grow best. It will be found that some of these stocks have died 
down to a considerable distance; but as they are not of the slightest 
importance above the top growing bud, you may, with a strong knife, 
cut right down to the bud, or leave it till afte* the summer growth of 
