ROSE, Culture of the. To obtain roses in their full perfection they require a situation open to the south, and free from buildings, trees, and the effects of smoke. They must also be sheltered from the wind. The tenderer sorts should be trained on a wall; the hardier dwarfs in beds or on the lawn, and standards arranged in lines along the walks. In planting, are should be taken to give room for the roots. A hole three feet in diameter and two feet deep should be filled with rich loamy soil, or a mixture of leaf mould, or rotted cow or pig manure, the straggling rootlets removed, and the plant ho fixed in the centre, supported by a stake to prevent it being loosened by the wind. November and December are the general months fur planting, but February is perhaps better in moist soils if the holes are made pre viously and exposed to a winter's frost. Standards should be at least three feet apart, dwarfs may be one-third closer. When planting in pots, the same soil should be prepared, taking care to have the bottom of the pot well supplied with broken crocks, and, to ensure sufficient drainage, the hole for the pot should be made of such a size and such a depth, that on pressing the pot into it, till about an inch below the surface, it may drive some of the side soil down so as to form a shoulder, and leave a vacancy of an inch or two below the pot. This not only ensures drainage, as the plant requires good watering, but is less likely to attract the roots to the adjacent soil. Roses are all the better for such surface-manuring during the autumn, either with compost of night-soil, or guano and wood ashes.
In refiring roses from seed, the hips, gathered when ripe, should be kept dry and whole till February, then broken and sown in a seed-pan about 8 or 9 inches deep, filled with rotten manure mixed with sandy loam or peat, covering the seed with about half an inch of the mould. Care must be taken to guard the seed from the attacks of mice ; this is best done by covering with a wire web, which also preserves the pan moist. Water occasionally, and the young plants
will begin to appear in April or May. After having made three or four leaves, pot them in small pots, and in about a mouth they will be fit to remove to the border ; and the free-growers by August will have made shoots sufficient to take buds from. The stocks must be cut down and budded, and they will then flower in the following summer if left uupruned.
Summer and autumnal roses are propagated by layers, cuttings, budding, and grafting. These operations are the same for the rose as for many other plants, and the budding is performed with even more facility than with many other plants, as the bark opens and closes firmly. Strong plants are also raised by budding on the roots, which are divided from the parent stem, and by this practice a year is gained for bushes flowering on their own roots.
The usual stock for grafting on is the common briar; but almost any rose of a hardy nature will afford stocks for a more valued variety, where the stocks are not required of a great height for standards, and one of the most favoured is the Alinetti, a variety introduced from Italy, which has the advantage of not throwing up suckers. Of other roses, from which stocks are wished for, the suckers may be allowed to spring. The forcing of roses for early show or for the greenhouse depends on the same principles as other plants—a somewhat earlier budding, protection from cold, and moderate heat applied in the early apring.
The varieties are now almost endless, and every season produces new ones. All the chief families are mentioned under Rosa, in the NAT. Ills?. Div., and a list of the principal varieties will be found in Rivers'a ' Rose Amateur's Guide,' last edition.