BUDDING ROSES IN POTS.

THE Blush Boursault and the Manetti, make the best stocks for budding on. My practice in budding on them is as follows:-The strongest shoots are selected early in July for layering; flower pots of the two quart size are taken, and the aperture at the bottom is enlarged, so as to allow the end of the shoot to be passed through. After doing this the shoot is tongued; the pot is drawn up till the tongue is about in the centre; it is then filled with a mixture of rotton dung and sand in equal parts, and well pressed down. The shoot may be budded at the time of layering or afterwards, according as the buds are ready. The shoots should be headed down at the time of budding to within two eyes of where the bud is inserted.* The buds

of all the Bourbon, Tea-scented, China, and Hybrid Autumnal Roses, will push immediately. These may be removed from the stools in August, potted in larger pots, and forced with great success the following spring.

DIRECTIONS FOR FORCING ROSES.

VERY few years ago forced roses were among the luxuries of gardening, and the matter was looked upon as a difficult operation in which accomplished gardeners only were successful; but with modern varieties the difficulty has vanished, and every one may have roses, at least in February, with the most simple means.

* This heading down at the time of budding, although commonly practised, cannot be generally recommended. If applied to the Dog Rose when budded early in June, small heads will at once be formed, but the constitution of the plant will be much weakened.

A pit 10 or 12 feet long and 8 feet wide, just high enough to stand upright in, with a door at one end, and sunken path in the centre, a raised bed on each side of the path, and an 18-inch Arnott's stove at the further end, opposite to the door, with a pipe leading into a small brick chimney outside, (a chimney is indispensable,) will give great abundance of forced roses from February to the end of May. To insure this a supply must be kept ready; so that, say twenty, may be placed in the forcing-pit about the middle of December, a like number in the middle of January, and the same about the middle of February; they must not be pruned until taken into the house, when each shoot should be cut back to two or three buds or eyes, the latter for the strong shoots. The fire should be lighted at seven in the morning, and suffered to burn out about the same hour in the evening, unless in frosty weather, when it must be kept burning till late at night, so as to exclude the frost; and for this purpose double mats should be placed on the lights. The thermometer should not, by fire heat, be higher in the day than 70° during December, January, and February; at night it may sink to 35° without injury. The temporary rise in a sunny day is of no consequence, but no air must be admitted at such times, or the plants will exhaust themselves, and immediately shed their leaves, When the sun begins to have power, and in sunny weather in February, the plants may be syringed every morning about 9 o'clock with tepid water, and smoked with tobacco at night on the least appearance of the aphis or green-fly.

To insure a fine and full crop of flowers, the plants should be established one year in pots, and plunged in tan or sawdust in an open exposed place, so that their shoots are well ripened the pots must be often removed, or what is better, place the pots on slates to prevent their roots striking into the ground; but with the Hybrid and Damask Perpetuals,

even if not potted in November previous, a very good crop of flowers may often be obtained, and a second crop better than the first; for the great advantage of forcing perpetual roses is, that after blooming in the greenhouse or drawingroom, their young shoots may be cut down to within two or three buds of their base, and the plants placed again in the forcing-house, and a second crop of flowers obtained. The same mode may be followed also with the Bourbon, China, and Tea-scented Roses; with the latter, indeed, a third crop may be often obtained.

Towards the end of March, when the second crop of flowers is coming on, the plants may be gradually inured to the air, by opening the sashes in mild weather. This will make them hardy and robust. Syringing should be practised every morning and evening; but when the flower buds are ready to open this must be confined to the stems of the plants and the pots, otherwise the flowers will be injured by the moisture; air must at first only be given about 12 in the day; care must be taken to remove the plants from the forcing-house to the green-house or drawingroom before their blossoms expand; they may then be kept in beauty many days. I have not found the check which the plants receive by this sudden change of temperature at all detrimental. During their second growth the plants should be watered once a week with manured water,* and the surface of the pot occasionally stirred. Those that are forced with the greatest facility are worked roses: these seldom or never fail to give an abundant crop of flowers; stems form 6 inches to 1 and 2 feet, are equally eligible; the latter form elegant plants, and I think generally grow with greater luxuriance than dwarfs. China and Tea

*Two pounds of guano to ten gallons of water forms the very best species of liquid manure: this should be stirred before it is used.

scented Roses on their own roots are more delicate, and require more care; still one crop of flowers may always be depended upon, even from them. Instead of forcing them for a second crop, it will be better to place them in the greenhouse; they will then bloom again finely in May. I find, from experience, that all the autumnal roses may be forced every year without any disadvantage: to insure their well doing, they must be removed from the forcinghouse early in June, the surface of the pots dressed with rotten manure, and plunged in the same, or leaves, or any light substance. Towards the end of September they should be carefully shifted, removing nearly all the earth from their roots, into a compost of light loam and rotten dung, equal quantities, (this is, on the whole, the very best compost for potted roses,) watered, and again plunged till required for forcing: this shifting would be better performed in June, but as the weather is then often hot and dry, roses worked on the Dog Rose are apt to suffer. Pots of the sizes called by the English 24's and 16's,* are the best sizes for strong plants of roses for forcing: when potted, the large and unyielding roots should be cut off close, so that the plants may stand in the centre of the pots, the fibrous and small roots merely tipped.

The treatment recommended for roses in a pit with Arnott's stove may be pursued with roses in a house with smoke-flues or hot-water pipes. Arnott's stove is recommended as an economical and eligible mode of heating, practised here to some extent with success for several years: on these stoves an iron pan, fitted to the top, should always

* The respective sizes of these pots are, 24's, 7 inches deep, and 8 inches over, measuring across the top of the pot; 16's, 8 inches deep, 9 inches in diameter.

be kept full of water. Roses may be forced slowly, but with perhaps greater certainty, by the uninitiated, by giving air freely and constantly in mild weather during the day, keeping the fire constantly burning during the same period as recommended when keeping them closely shut up.

CULTIVATION OF ROSES IN POTS FOR THE GREENHOUSE.

For this purpose a selection should be made of some of the finer varieties of China and Tea-scented Roses on their own roots; it may also include such Bourbons as the Queen, Acidalie, Crimson Globe, Grand Capitaine, Madame Nerard, Madame Margat, Proserpine and Phoenix, and Noisette's Miss Glegg, Lelieur, Ne Plus Ultra, Victorieuse, and other choice and more rare varieties. Those I have named are all of dwarfish and compact habit, and free bloomers. Presuming these roses to be procured in the spring or summer, in the usual small pots they are generally grown in by the cultivators for sale, they should be immediately potted into pots called 32's, (these are generally 7 inches deep, by 6 over at the surface,) in a compost of turfy sandy loam and well-rotted manure, equal quantities, or leaf-mould; if the latter is used, two-thirds to onethird of loam will be as well; this compost must not be sifted, but merely chopped into pieces as large as a walnut: the fine mould, which will, as a matter of course, result from this chopping, must not be separated from the pieces of turf, but all must be well mixed with the manure or leaf-mould. The pots should then be filled about one-third with broken pieces of crockery or potsherds, the plants taken from the small pots, and the balls of earth gently