You have, I think, a florist in your neighbourhood who raises roses for
the market. This is my method, practised for many years with comforting
success. Instead of buying pot-grown tea roses in April or May, that,
unless a good price (from twenty-five cents up) is paid for them, will
be so small that they can only be called bushes at the season's end, I
go to our florist and buy fifty of the bushes that he has forced during
the winter and being considered spent are cast out about June first, in
order to fill in the new stock.

All such roses are not discarded each season, but the process is carried
on in alternate benches and years, so that there are always some to be
obtained. These plants, big, tired-looking, and weak in the branches, I
buy for the nominal sum of ten dollars per hundred, five dollars' worth
filling a long border when set out in alternating rows. On taking these
home, I thin out the woodiest shoots, or those that interfere, and plant
deep in the border, into which nitrate of soda has been dug in the
proportion of about two ounces to a plant.

After spreading out the roots as carefully as possible, I plant firmly
and water thoroughly, but do not as yet prune off the long branches. In
ten days, having given meanwhile two waterings of liquid manure, I prune
the bushes back sharply. By this time they will have probably dropped
the greater part of their leaves, and having had a short but sufficient
nap, are ready to grow, which they proceed to do freely. I do not
encourage bloom in July, but as soon as we have dew-heavy August nights
it begins and goes on, increasing in quality until hard frost. Many of
these bushes have wintered comfortably and on being pruned to within
three inches of the ground have lasted many years.