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Same Rose as Fig. 29 Properly Pruned: Massey

Professor L. M. Massey and Professor Whetzel, of Cornell, are making investigations of diseases of roses. This work is most valuable and considerable progress has been made in dividing and classifying.

It has been discovered that there are a number of different diseases which have generally been designated as black spot. In this connection, it is most important that this research be given all the help possible throughout the country by rose growers, as the workers are most anxious to have specimens showing diseases on rose bushes sent to them. It would be best, where the entire plant is affected, to send the plant with the roots, but the soil is not of any moment. In the case of leaves, it is better not to wet them but to place in newspaper, and send by mail.

It has been thought that black spot was merely a ripening of the leaves of the plant, and a natural condition. At Cornell it has been proved that black spot is absolutely traceable to a fungous growth, and Professor Massey is quoted: "The organism can be isolated at will, and the disease readily produced by inoculations."

As the nights become still colder the blooms will, of course, take longer to develop; nevertheless the roses make a fight to give flowers and the late bloomers continue to do so until about the middle of November. From the middle to the last of November is the time roses should be given proper winter protection.

The first thing to do with all ordinary bushes is to cut them down to an approximate height of a foot and a half. They will nearly all die down to this height or below in any event, and by cutting off the bushy tops damage by high wind is prevented. The mulch should at this time be removed and saved for the following spring.

The matter of hilling up has been noted, but is so important that it is repeated. It consists of heaping the ground up around the bush. It is well to add some top soil to the bed and hoe this up in a little mound around each plant to a height not less than six inches above the bed level.

Mr. H. J. Staples, of Biddeford, Maine, who has tried a number of roses advocated in our former editions with very good success, claims that in his section it is better to make the hills around the roses twelve inches in height. By this method he lost only twelve out of seventy-five roses during the winter of 1915-1916. It is also interesting to note that he reports the blooming of the roses, with very few exceptions, to be identical with the records given for the Middle Atlantic States.