ders, ripe shoots may be taken as above directed, planted in pots, and placed in a cold frame, kept close, and sprinkled every morning. These will root slowly, but surely; for autumnal cuttings any convenient and spare shoots may be made into cuttings, and planted under a hand-glass in a warm exposure, about the middle or end of September: these must have air in mild humid weather during the winter, and be gradually exposed to the air in April by tilting the light: by the end of April they will be fit for potting. All the autumnal roses will grow readily if the above methods are followed. The Damask Perpetuals only are slow in rooting, and are propagated with more difficulty.

SPRING AND SUMMER GRAFTING OF
AUTUMNAL ROSES.

This is a most interesting method of propagation and most simple. Stocks of any free-growing roses should be potted at any time in the autumn, winter, or early spring months; the first-named period is the most eligible. The Manetti Rose is the best stock, then comes Celine, also very good: some of the Hybrid China Roses will also make good stocks. In the month of April, the shoots of Tea-scented, Hybrid, Perpetual, and indeed of all the autumnal roses that have been forced, will be mature and in a fit state

for grafting.

One certain rule may be depended upon, when every flower on a shoot has fallen, that shoot is ripe and in a fit state; then take your stock, cut off cleanly all the shoots from the stem, leaving only those at the crown, which shorten to within two inches of their base, cut off from the side of the stock a thin slice of bark, and fit the graft to it as in whip-grafting, as described in page 153, only instead of using bass for tyeing, use cotton twist, and in binding on the graft do not let the threads of twist touch, but mind that you can see the bark of the stock between each thread; place the grafted stocks in a close, moist heat, till the grafts begin to shoot, cutting off all the young shoots carefully from the stock below the graft, and treat them exactly as recommended for cuttings in page 148, hardening them gradually; in a fortnight they will be safe; as soon as the graft has made shoots four or five inches long, the head of the stock should be cut off close down to the graft; till this takes place, all the young shoots from the crown of the stock above the graft should be shortened but not taken off.

In May, shoots from Tea-scented, China, Bourbon, and Noisette Roses, grown in pots in the greenhouse, will be fit to graft. In June, shoots from roses of the same families, growing against walls or in other warm situations in the open air will be fit; in the last-named month.

artificial heat for the grafts may be dispensed with, and a close frame, well shaded with mats in sunny weather, and the plants sprinkled morning and evening, will do very well, unless the weather be windy and cool, the grafts will then require close, moist heat, either from manure or hot water; in the former case, a common cucumber bed and frame kept closely shut will answer every purpose. These summer grafted rose-trees are nicely adapted for pot culture: those grafted in April and May will bloom beautifully in the greenhouse till the end of December.

When the four-inch pots in which the stocks have been grafted become filled with roots, the plants may be shifted into seven-inch pots, and plunged in old tan or sawdust in a gentle hotbed, in a sunny-exposed situation, till the end of September, if the weather be warm and dry; if wet and cold, they should be removed to the greenhouse early in the month: from the greenhouse they may be repotted into eight or nine-inch pots, and removed to the forcing-house: in January they will give abundance of flowers, and amply reward the cultivator.

DIRECTIONS FOR FORCING ROSES.

Very few years ago forced roses were one of the luxuries of gardening, and the matter was

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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.

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 a sunken path in the centre, a raised bed on each side of the path, and an 18-inch brick 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 ensure 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 till 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 60° during December and January: at night it may sink to 35° without injury. The

temporary rise in a sunny day is of no consequence. When the sun begins to have power, and in sunny weather towards the end of February, air should be given daily, and the plants be syringed every morning about 10 o'clock with tepid water, and smoked with tobacco at night on the least appearance of the aphis or green fly.

To ensure 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, they should be placed on slates to prevent their roots striking into the ground; but with the Hybrid and Damask Perpetuals, even if only 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 drawing-room, 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.

* Worked plants of the Hybrid Perpetuals if potted early in November, and plunged in a gentle hot-bed till the end of December, may be forced in January.