{ Ave., 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 123 
Horticulture. 
THE ROSE. 
The great secret in successful horticulture is a pertect knowledge of the 
seasons, so as to adapt each variety of cultivated flowers to the needful 
temperature and rainfall. For roses to give complete satisfaction, they must 
be allowed ample room for the roots to spread and feed, with plenty of light 
and air to ripen the wood. Hence seasonable planting, seasonable pruning, and 
seasonable working are the elements of success. ; 
The proper season for planting roses is from March to August, and the 
main pruning should be done in June or July. The cuttings may be planted 
in beds for future setting out. The freest flowering roses are the Tea, 
Noisettes, Bourbons, and some of the hybrid Chinas and perpetuals. Some of 
the Teas and Noisettes will bear pruning whenever they are at rest and out of 
bloom, and this process will hasten their blooming again. Hybrid perpetuals 
must only be pruned during the main pruning season. ‘The best soil for roses 
is a deep, rich strong loam, free from stagnant moisture. Some like a sweet 
clay subsoil. Sandy, gravelly soils are not suitable. But if such are the only 
soils available they must be improved by a dressing of —strong loam in 
conjunction with cowdung or nightsoil; the latter, if properly prepared and 
not too fresh, is really the very best manure for roses in all but soils which are 
naturally rich. If artificial manures are used, the trees will be much benefited 
by a manurial dressing once in three weeks of 1 lb. of nitrate of soda to from 
50 to 75 gallons of water. After application, moisten the soil slightly. Old 
stocks require more dilution—say, 100 gallons of water to 1b. of nitrate. The 
soil may be soaked with this. 
Heavy soils are improved by adding burnt earth or gritty refuse with 
stable manure and leaf mould or cocoa fibre refuse. Damp soils must neces- 
sarily be drained. Roses require a constant annual supply of manure, with 
liberal supplies of water, during the growing season, and especially must they 
be kept clear of aphides and other insect pests. This may be done by dusting 
them with tobacco dust when the branches and leaves are moist with dew, and 
washing it off with a syringe next day, or spray them with tobacco water or 
kerosene emulsion. In Vol. VI., page 381, of this Journal, we illustrated a 
very excellent spray pump, possessing the advantages of lightness, cleanliness, 
and effectiveness. It is especially adapted for ladies’ use in the bush or hot- 
house or for garden spraying, being easily worked. It delivers a fine spray, 
which may be rendered heavier by working the plunger quickly. Used with a 
spraying fluid of lemon oil made thin, rose leaf, extract of tobacco, tobacco 
soap, whale oil soap, it is most effective in searching out green fly, mildew, or 
insects and scale on delicate flowers and roses. It is also very handy for 
spraying the walls and roofs of poultry-houses. It is named the Cyclone Spray 
Pump, and can be obtained for a few shillings at any seedsman’s shop in 
Brisbane. 
Some growers prefer to grow roses on their own roots, others on briar 
stocks. When growing on their own roots, should the tops die down from any 
cause, the roots will throw up fresh shoots true to their kind, whereas if the 
grafted rose dies back nothing will come in its place but the original briar. 
When dwarf beds of roses are required, a good plan is to peg down to within 
about 6 inches from the ground the strong one-year-old shoots from the root. 
In due time blooming shoots break out from nearly every eye, and masses of 
flowers are secured, while strong young shoots are sent up from the centre, the 
plant being on its own roots. Before the winter, the old shoots which have 
thus flowered and exhausted themselves are cut away, and three or four more 
of the strongest and best-ripened young shoots are reserved for pegging down 
the following season, say in July or August. In the meantime, after the 
pruning has been effected, plenty of good manure should have been dug in 
about the roots. Thus treated, the plants never fail to produce plenty of 
strong wood for pegging down each season. © 
