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Hybrid Tea and Briar Foliage (At left ordinary Hybrid Tea)

At left, ordinary Hybrid Tea foliage showing five leaves on each lateral. On the right, a sucker showing plainly seven leaves on the lower laterals. Note also the greater number of thorns of thorns plants, and can even then be easily detected. To keep this percentage down, roses on Briar and Manetti must be planted with the bud two to three inches below the surface of the soil, as hereafter advocated. If planted less deeply they will grow a greater number of suckers.

Fewer suckers develop from Multiflora than from Briar or Manetti, and on this account George H.

Peterson recommends planting the bud from one to one and a half inches below the finished level of the bed. One reason for the lack of suckers is that the Multiflora is budded from seedlings, while the Briar is usually budded from cuttings, in which case there are dormant eyes below the point where the bud is inserted; whereas in the seedlings, the bud is inserted below the dormant eyes.

Very often cuttings have only greenhouse growth when shipped. At best they are generally propagated under glass and have not had much outdoor growth, whereas budded plants are budded in the summer out-of-doors, and have even as yearlings a whole season's outside growth before being sold.

In one particular instance the following experiment was made with own root stock. One bed was made, and over fifty roses on their own roots and fifty budded roses were planted in it side by side, all of old and established varieties, and, in the case of the own root plants, purchased from a grower who advocates their use. At the end of the first summer the difference was plainly apparent and was strongly in favor of the budded plants. At the end of two years there was no possible doubt as to the result; the budded plants were far superior.

Experiments with other roses have endorsed this result, and budded roses are recommended for all outdoor work for the majority of roses contained in the lists, whether Hybrid Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals, Teas, Chinas, or Pernetianas.

The roses which do well on their own roots must be secured in two-year-old plants to obtain the best results, and should either be planted in the fall from dormant field grown stock, or planted in the spring from pots after the weather is settled, and for the best results procured from a nursery near at hand.

Such plants will become established toward fall and usually give fair results at that time.

In the case of climbers and some few very strong growers the own root roses will give good results, but as a working rule they cannot be recommended. In one garden budded roses, originally planted in the autumn of 1900 and moved to their present place in 1907, are still strong and healthy, and of the original lot less than two per cent. have died in over fifteen years. FIG. 3 Multiflora RADIANCE FIG. 4 Own Roots On Multiflora and own roots both plants of the same age. This illustrates that the strongest growers may be successfully cultivated on their own roots, but that better results will be obtained by budding In another case budded roses planted over thirty years ago are still flourishing, and this certainly shows that their length of life is all that can be expected.

In the testing of new roses the great majority has been budded plants and the percentage of deaths has naturally been greater in these new varieties than in established kinds. In importing three hundred to a thousand roses of new varieties, twenty plants a year would cover all the deaths even of these new and untried kinds.

In other branches of horticulture budding and grafting have been tried with the greatest success.

It does seem that a tried stock is better than a different stock with each plant, viz., its own. Undoubtedly better stocks will be discovered for certain roses which do not do well on the regular stocks; but surely it is going backward to grow inferior roses on their own roots and be satisfied with them, rather than experiment to ascertain the best stocks. "The Nursery Book," by L. H. Bailey, should be read by any one attempting budding.