but it has now become an important part of the business. If skilfully and tastefully done, it greatly enhances the beauty of our favourites: if otherwise, it has a contrary tendency. Often we see well-grown plants, which reflect great credit on the cultivator, spoiled in the training. To manage this properly, the shoots should be tied out to sticks immediately that the plants are pruned; and when the newly-formed shoots are three or four inches long, they should be tied out also, training according to some preconceived plan.

We agree that the fewer sticks used the better; but we fear Roses cannot be managed nicely without the help of some. We do not like to see a plant with as many sticks as it has flowers, and almost a hedge-stake used to support a branch which a privet-twig would hold in place. This is bungling and unsightly, equalled only by the want of design often apparent in the training. The sticks should be chosen as slight as will support the flowers, and the shape of the plant should be determined before we commence to fashion it. Not that we are obliged to follow such form, if, by any occurrence, we discover one more suitable in an after stage of growth. The sticks used in tying out and training should be painted green, as near the colour of the foliage as possible, duller, not brighter, or they will create a glare, and detract from the beauty of the plant. To us the system of a tall shoot in the centre of the plant, with all the others disposed around it gradually decreasing in height as they recede from the centre-in a word, a pyramid, presents the most pleasing object. See No. 28; which is a newly-pruned plant grown and trained on this system.

Immediately after pruning, we draw the lower shoots downwards over the rim of the pot, just beneath which a wire should pass, to which the bast may be fastened. When the plants are of three or four years' growth, and have been previously trained upon this plan, tier above tier of branches may be arranged, each decreasing in circumference in the ascent, till we terminate in a point. Trained on this plan, the plants require constant care and attention during the season of growth to keep them well balanced. Strong shoots must be stopped as occasion may require, and weak ones encouraged.

A round bush is quite in character in some instances, especially for such kinds as are of lowly growth.

The plants may be trained to a face, the tallest shoots ranged at the back, the others gradually decreasing in height as they approach the front. This method has been successfully carried out at the various horticultural exhibitions, where only one side of the plant, or at most three-quarters of it, is presented to view.

Pruning may be applied here as elsewhere, excepting that, the growth of PotRoses being usually less vigorous than that of kinds under common treatment, they require rather closer pruning. Disbudding should be practised in Potculture especially: it is of great assistance in obtaining well-formed plants, which we expect to see when grown in pots.

But the second season has passed away, and we have entered upon the third.

Our plants are not equal to what they are capable of becoming; but the accompanying engraving (No. 29) may be considered a fair illustration of a three-years' old plant that has been carefully and skilfully cultivated for two seasons. Its growth is too vigorous to be called perfect, for the flowers are, in consequence, nearly all on the top of long shoots. This, however, is desirable at this stage of growth, and easily remedied the next year, by long pruning, and afterwards bending the branches down.

Roses are often lifted from the ground to be grown in pots, and it is necessary to say a few words about them. Early in autumn (September) is a good time. to take them up; and if done immediately after rain, the roots are less liable to be injured in the removal. When potting, whether the plants are on their own roots or on stems, the straggling roots should be cut in so far as to admit of their being placed comfortably in the pots. If any of the roots have been bruised in taking up, the bruised part should be cut away: let the cut be made clean with a knife, and fibrous roots will soon be emitted from its surface. When potting worked plants, we should have an eye to suckers from the wild stock, which should be cut off close to the stem, to prevent their springing into life at any future period. The sized pots most suitable for dwarf plants from the ground vary from Nos. 32 to 12; if a plant is of robust growth, strong and well rooted, it may be placed in

the latter size: if the reverse, use the former. In reference to this, the judgment at the time of potting is the best guide. Placing the plants too low in the soil is a great evil: always keep the roots near to the surface, as they are sure to strike downwards.

It is essential here that the pots be thoroughly drained, and the soil should be well pressed or shaken down among the roots. The heads may be thinned out at the time of potting, leaving as many shoots as can be found properly situated to form the plant handsomely. The shortening of the shoots may be deferred till the plants are supposed to have made fresh roots; remembering, however, that the time of pruning regulates the time of blooming. The earlier they are pruned the earlier they will flower.

After potting, the plants should be placed in a cold pit, where they may remain closed from the air for a few days. They should be syringed twice daily, or three times, and shaded also, if sunny weather. If taken up in September or October, when the leaf is green, and kept in a close pit, well syringed and shaded, they will retain their leaves almost as fresh as if left in the ground, and soon renew their hold of the soil.

I have removed the Autumnals from the ground in June and July, just when they had completed their first flowering, and, by treating them in the manner above described, have obtained complete success.

It is not necessary that they should remain in a pit for any great length of time. After the first ten days or fortnight air may be admitted gradually to harden them, when the hardy kinds may be plunged out of doors, in an airy situation, and the tender ones kept in the pit, or placed by themselves where they may be sheltered from severe frosts. The north side of a wall or fence will serve for this purpose, erecting a temporary building, open on three sides, the top covered with felt or fern, or any thing else that will exclude the rain and frost: the sides may then be closed in with mats in severe weather.

A few remarks on Roses grown in pots as climbers may not be altogether useless. If it be the wish of the cultivator to train a few upon this system, they should be invariably chosen on their own roots. But perhaps it may seem strange that we should suggest such a thing. What! cultivate Climbing Roses in pots! The idea is absurd! So it would be did we recommend the groups which are ordinarily spoken of as climbers; namely, the Ayrshire, Boursault, Banksian, Musk, Sempervirens, &c. But such is not our intention. Magnificent as these are when growing in the open ground, to the height of fifteen feet, covered with their immense trusses of bloom, we are aware that their semi-double and transient flowers render them unsuitable for Pot-culture. But where else are varieties found that will climb? This question will be replied to in the list given at the end of this Work.

We have now to point out the end in view, and the means by which it is to be accomplished. Some kinds, which are indispensable even in a small collection,

cannot be grown to advantage except as climbers; such are, Noisettes, Lemarque, Solfaterre, Jaune Desprez, and others. As to the shape they are brought to assume, the taste of the cultivator will perhaps be the best guide. Circular trellises may be formed, varying in height and diameter, that they may be fitted. to any particular variety, according to its rate of growth. None should exceed three feet in height. Round these the shoots may be trained, according to the accompanying illustration (No. 30), so as eventually to hide the trellis, and to produce

a dense, but not shapeless, mass of foliage and flowers. It is necessary, in the first instance, to practise close pruning, to induce them to grow vigorously: the shoots should then be trained in their proper course during the season of growth. Now, the great point to be kept in view here is, so to prune and train that the plant may produce flowers from its summit to the ground; for it is evident that if only a few flowers are to be produced at the top, then the dwarfer it is grown the better. Here, as in all gardening operations, Nature requires time to perfect her work. The plants will not be complete the first year: they may not the second. Much, of course, will depend on the treatment they undergo, their strength when put to the trellis, and the size of the latter. But little pruning is necessary: each year the weak and unripened wood only should be removed, tying the rest to the trellis,

till it is covered. With respect to the shortening of the shoots, they should be cut back to eyes that are well ripened, and no farther. Cover the trellis as thoroughly and quickly as possible, and then prune as directed for Climbing Roses.

We said, at the opening of this Chapter, that Roses may be had in flower all the year round. Let us revert to that point. We must divide our plants into three lots, varying the colours in each as much as possible; securing the fullest kinds for forcing, and the least double for winter flowering. From June to October, inclusive, may be considered the natural season of flowering. By forcing, of which we shall speak in the next Chapter, we may obtain flowers from February to May. It is now our intention to relate how we secure flowers from November to February. This is the most difficult point to attain. Nevertheless, it is done, by inducing the Autumnals to grow and form flower-buds late in the autumn, and by preserving these flower-buds from wet and frost. I do not say this plan is new, or has not been adopted by others; but I certainly am one who read the lesson from the book of Nature, and afterwards practised it with complete success. Walking one October evening among some Chinese and Tea-scented Roses which had been transplanted in spring, and had grown and flowered but little during a dry summer, I could not but remark how thickly the trees were then covered with small flower buds. The first inquiry was, as to the cause of this, which was soon discovered. A dry spring had been succeeded by rain late in summer, and the plants were now growing vigorously. Pleased at first by the prospect of so late a bloom, it did not strike me that it would be the middle of November before the flowers could be perfected. However, frost and rain set in, and the consequences were soon apparent-the flower-buds were blighted and decayed. One kind alone, Chinese Fabvier, a semi-double scarlet one, braved the storm, and his rich warm tints were unusually beautiful, or perhaps apparently so, in contrast with the desolation that reigned around. The petals of the most double kinds had become glued together at their tops, which prevented them from expanding, and the buds rotted. From these observations I inferred two things; 1st, That had these flower-buds been protected from frost and rain, they would have been gradually unfolded; for they continued advancing in size so long as the weather remained favourable. 2dly, That the least double varieties are more likely to expand their flowers perfectly late in the year than others, because less affected by damp; and, that the damp was as destructive as the cold, was evident, from the most double varieties, which retain moisture the longest, being in the worst state, and from the semi-double ones flowering, in spite of the adverse weather.

Building upon these inferences, late in the following summer (I think in August) I cut down the main shoots of several Autumnals that were then flowering in pots, leaving two or three eyes on each shoot to break from. They broke; and in October, the flower-buds being formed, the plants were removed to a cold pit, giving all possible air in fine weather. It was a mild winter, but a damp (Div. I.)