[Original]
Nothing is more beneficial to roses than a frequent digging and stirring of the soil around them. The surface should never be allowed to become hard, but should be kept light and porous by hoeing or forking several times in the course of the season. A yearly application of manure will be of great advantage. It may be applied in the autumn or in the spring, and forked in around the plants. Cultivators who wish to obtain the finest possible blooms sometimes apply liquid manure early in the summer, immediately after the flower-buds are formed. This penetrates at once to the roots, and takes immediate effect on the growing bud.
[Original]
The amateur may perhaps draw some useful hints from an experiment made by the writer in cultivating roses, with a view to obtaining the best possible individual flowers. A piece of land about sixty feet long by forty wide was "trenched" throughout to the depth of two feet and a half, and enriched with three layers of manure. The first was placed at eighteen inches from the surface; the second, at about nine inches; and the third was spread on the surface itself, and afterwards dug in. The virgin soil was a dense yellow loam of considerable depth; and, by the operation of "trenching," it was thoroughly mixed and incorporated with the black surface soil. Being too stiff and heavy, a large quantity of sandy road-scrapings was laid on with the surface-dressing of manure. When the ground was prepared, the roses were planted in rows. They consisted of Hardy June, Moss, Hybrid Perpetual, Bourbon, and a few of the more hardy Noisette roses. They were planted early in spring, and cut back at the same time close to the ground. Many of the Perpétuais and Bourbons flowered the first season, and all grew with a remarkable vigor. In November, just before the ground froze, a spadesman, working backward midway between the rows, dug a trench of the depth and width of his spade, throwing the earth in a ridge upon the roots of the roses as he proceeded. This answered a double purpose. The ridge of earth protected the roots and several inches of the stems, while the trench acted as a drain. In the spring, the earth of the ridge was drawn back into the trench with a hoe, and the roses pruned with great severity; some of the weak-growing Perpetuals and Mosses being cut to within two inches of the earth, and all the weak and sickly stems removed altogether. The whole ground was then forked over. The bloom was abundant, and the flowers of uncommon size and symmetry. Had the pruning been less severe, the mass of bloom would have been greater, but the individual flowers by no means of so good quality.
[Original]
Of budded roses we shall speak hereafter, in treating of propagation. There is one kind, however, which it will be well to notice here. In England and on the Continent, it is a common practice to bud roses on tall stems or standards of the Dog Rose, or other strong stock, sometimes at a height of five feet or more from the ground. The head of bloom thus produced has a very striking effect, especially when the budded rose is of a variety with long slender shoots, adapted to form what is called a "weeper."