
53 
- . Ea LES ra ot | tk 
000 ROSE VARITIE S-WHY? 
My experimental and display gardens sontaining more than a 
Ghousand varieties of roses, on so many bushes we never at- 
tempt to count them, is an infernal expensive nuisance I 
maintain for the purpose of finding out the truth about new 
rose varieties, principally. The number of varieties has so 
far been kept constant at about 1000, (war conditions may in- 
terfere with this for awhile) but innumerable roses are added 
and others discarded every year, so that at least 2,000 va- 
rieties have been closely observed in the past decade. 
Among our roses you will find just about everything you have 
ever heard about or wanted to see, varieties dating impartial- 
ly from a couple of thousand years ago down to tomorrow. In 
the gardens pretty nearly every_known thing has been done to 
roses. They have been grown on Canina, Laxe, Odorata, on the 
mysterious Texas Wax, Multiflora, Ragged Robin and on all 
peocurable variations of the above. They have been slipped 
and grown on their own roovs,.and on the foots of fifty other- 
Varieties of Species, Hybrid Tea roses, etc. 
side by side in the same row, roses have been whackec right 
down to the ground, whacked lightly, whacked moderately; they 
have been pruned high, low and medium. (Pruning is entirely 
different from whacking.) They have been planted on top of 
lovely juicy messes of manure and trash, in clean soil over 
messes, and in just plain clean soil. They have been planted 
in soil prepared four feet down, and in holes dug out of vir- 
gin earth. Planted with all their roots intact, with part 
of the roots on, and with practically all roots bopped off 
-a@ la the average professional gardener. 
To add insult to injury I rudely plant the brand new super- 
colossal unparalleled extra-extra varieties in the same rows 
with older roses of the same type. If the new super...etc. 
roses are inferior to the old I just don't propagate them. 
Similarly I add to my sales list from time to time older 
roses dropped generally, but better by actual test than any 
of the new. 
