218 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
has occurred to me, that it can be only necessary to make their 
capabilities known to ensure for them very general estimation 
and adoption. 
The plants selected for me were healthy three years old 
specimens, which had made from five to eight vigorous shoots 
in the preceding summer : they were lifted from the open 
ground, care being taken to preserve as many of the young 
fibrous roots as possible: most of them were growing on their 
own bottoms, as the nurserymen express it, that is, were not 
produced from buds inserted on another stock; and these I 
greatly prefer, because of the liability of the plants to protrude 
suckers from the base of the stems, a feature common to the 
whole family. These, from their more immediate vicinity to the 
roots, are sure to obtain the largest supply of nutriment; and 
this, when withdrawn from the system of the plant by an alien 
shoot, which has afterwards to be removed, is a direct robbery 
of the legitimate branches : if, however, the sucker is of the 
same kind as the head, it, of course, can be regulated so as to 
contribute towards the general improvement of the plant, and 
is then rather an advantage than a loss. 
The soil used for potting was chiefly rich turfy loam, enriched 
with rotten manure from an old melon bed, and the mass made 
porous with a considerable quantity of road grit — the propor¬ 
tions were about three of loam, two of manure, and one of sand ; 
the pots were rather larger than what would have been necessary 
to contain the roots without cramping, and after the potting 
was performed, the strongest of the shoots was shortened back 
five or six joints, and the plants plunged for the winter to the 
rims of the pots in coal ashes, with only an occasional protection 
from the severe frosts of spring by means of mats thrown over 
them. This was fully sufficient for the kinds chosen, as they 
were chiefly Perpetuals and their hybrids, with a few Gallicas: 
of course, for the tender varieties of the China and Bourbon 
tribes, a pit or frame would be quite indispensable. 
The pruning was done between the beginning and middle of 
March, a short time before the buds begin to burst into leaf, 
when the number and strength of the flower-bearing shoots for 
the ensuing season can be ascertained with the greatest exac¬ 
titude. From the time the flower buds make their appearance 
until their expansion, is the only time that Roses, in pots, can 
be said to require attention ; but then it must be given them ; 
