“The treatment recommended for roses in a pit with Arnott’s stove may be pursued with roses in a house with smoke-flues or hot-water pipes. Arnott’s stove is recommended as an economical and eligible mode of heating, practiced here to some extent with success for several years. On these stoves an iron pan, fitted to the top, should always be kept full of water. Roses may be forced slowly, but with perhaps greater certainty by the uninitiated, by giving air freely and constantly in mild weather during the day, keeping the fire constantly burning during the same period, as recommended when keeping them closely shut up.”
We have copied the whole of this article, although in a measure a repetition of previous remarks, since it may be interesting to some to know the opinion of so eminent a cultivator on this least understood branch of rose culture. A few of his directions are somewhat different from those we have given before, and may be far better than our own plan, in the climate of England. Here, an Arnott’s stove would scarcely heat a pit to 70° with the thermometer at zero; and if it should, we would think it rather dangerous to give so high a temperature at once. The strength of guano is also so varied, that we should feel very cautious in using it according to the above receipt. While, however, we would not venture to question the general utility of his directions, we may perhaps say, that we have found our own plan effective in its results, and productive of thrifty plants and beautiful flowers. We would advise cultivators to test them both, and adopt that which succeeds best in their hands. A pit of the above description can be constructed at a very low price, and should be found on the premises of every gentleman of even very moderate income, for the supply of his parlors during winter. If, in addition to this, there were constructed on the east side of the house, and facing south, a little room with a glass front and roof, opening into the parlor, and heated either by a valve from the house furnace, or by a water-back connected with the parlor grate, more enjoyment would be afforded the lover of flowers than could be obtained by any other outlay of two hundred dollars. This room could then be kept constantly filled with roses from the pit, and through the most dreary winter, amid rain, snow, and storm, would present a bright array of the living reminders of spring and summer. It is a matter of much surprise, that, among all the beautiful country residences in the vicinity of our large cities, surrounded by all the appliances of luxury and comfort that taste and wealth can afford, so few instances are found in which the drawing-room or parlor opens into a green-house or conservatory. These buildings are frequently placed at a distance from the house, and although they may be filled with the most beautiful and rare exotics, are, during the greater part of the winter, inaccessible to the ladies of the family.
Let gentlemen of wealth, then, place their vineries anywhere, but use them as forcing-houses when the vines are in a dormant state. Let them also have a green-house or conservatory opening from the drawing-room, into which all the plants can be brought from the vinery whenever they show signs of bloom. This conservatory can be heated by hot water, flowing through iron pipes from a boiler placed over the furnace that warms the drawing-room—taking from this very little heat, and yet abundantly warming the conservatory. An improvement could still farther be made, by having the east end of the conservatory arch over a carriage drive, and thus allow visitors to enter the drawing-room through the conservatory. Exclusive of the delight afforded visitors by this very pleasant addition to a dwelling, it affords a delightful promenade for the ladies of the family, where, while all is wintry without, and walking is unpleasant, even when the ice-bound trees are glittering in the clear sunlight, they may luxuriate amid roses and jasmines, breathing air fragrant with the perfume of daphne and orange flowers, and surrounded with everything that can remind them of the beauty and bland climate of the sunny south.
We have occupied so much space with the peculiarities of culture for the forcing-house, that we had almost forgotten that more humble, but no less pleasure-giving mode of Window culture. As this culture is practiced chiefly by those who cannot spare the time nor incur the expense of previous preparation, the best mode is that given for late forcing of roses, taken up the autumn previous, placing the plants in pots seven inches in diameter, and using a soil composed of equal parts of sand, loam, and manure, or peat, loam, and manure. They can be watered with manure-water every fortnight, made from the drippings of the barn-yard, or, what is more pleasant, a safely weak solution of guano, about one pound to fifteen gallons.
The plants should be brought into the heat gradually; first into a cold room where there is no frost, and then into the sitting-room, where they can be placed in the window, and turned around every week, in order to give each side of the plant its share of light. They will soon begin to put forth their thrifty shoots, in some six weeks will present a fine show of beautiful flowers, and, if properly managed, will continue blooming through the winter. If attacked by the green-fly, the plant can be inverted in a strong decoction of tobacco, or it can be fumigated by being placed under an inverted barrel, or other receptacle, with some burning tobacco. For window culture, the Everblooming Roses are the best, and they should be ordered of the nurseryman in suitable pots. This mode commends itself to all; it is within the reach of the daily laborer; the seamstress can have it in her window, and in the midst of her toilsome duties, be reminded by its bright flowers of many a green spot in past days. It is especially suited to the means and leisure of the operatives in our factories, many of whom have left the country and all its green fields and pleasant flowers for the crowded city, where they can have no garden, but simply this little pot to remind them of past pleasures, and throw a gleam of sunshine over their hours of relief from labor. The plant can be placed in their chamber window, or in the windows of the factory, where the high temperature, if it has been brought from the chamber, will soon bring out its foliage in great luxuriance, and its flowers in beauty, and be a pleasant object of care in the moments snatched from the operations of the loom. To this class we would especially commend the Rose; as thriving under simple treatment, as possessing, more than any other flower, the elements of beauty, and tending, like other flowers, to keep alive in a crowded city that freshness and purity of feeling that distinguished their country life, and which, unless there exists an unusual perversion of the moral faculties, must always result from an intimate acquaintance with natural objects.
[CHAPTER VII.]
PROPAGATION OF THE ROSE.
CUTTINGS.