In the first place let the amateur buy only the more hardy roses, consulting some reliable catalogue for the necessary information, or an experienced rose grower. It is foolish and altogether unwise to waste time, labor, and money over the tender tea roses that will have to be removed from the garden borders every fall to sicken in the close and confined air of our keeping rooms ; and if the plants come out alive in the spring they will do exceedingly well. Only a cold frame, laid in a sunny, sheltered nook, will insure good success in wintering. It is much better to buy hardy sorts. The hybrid perpetuals are excellent keepers, and will stand the rigor of our winters with only ordinary protection.

Roses need a good stiff clay soil, well enriched. If the soil is sandy, clay should be used with it. Daily attention should be given to the slug pest during the early part of the summer ; but tobacco has at last shown its useful side. If a strong decoction is frequently applied it will soon exterminate these molluscs, and besides act as a useful stimulant to the plant.

To raise roses from slips, break down the stray shoot from which the rose has just fallen, and plant it in a tin can. The uneven pieces that come from the parent stem is just the part that will callous and emit roots. A better plan still, and a surer one, is to crack the under side of strong healthy shoots, and then to peg them down in cans sunk at convenient distances and filled with rich earth. The cans should have a slot cut in the side nearest the plant for the passage of the shoot. When well rooted, cut from the parent stem, lift the cans, and you have your young plants in good condition and well started.

At the approach of winter bank earth about the roots of your roses, some six inches or more ; and after the first light freeze or just before, add further protection in the shape of leaves fastened about the tops with brush or stakes. Evergreen boughs are still better, as they let in the air and do not hold dampness. In the spring, after removing the outer protection, cut back to the green wood. Often the entire plant will come out green and healthy but it should be pruned severely, if young, healthy flowering shoots are desired. The mound of earth may be removed later.

Among the most hardy, best flowering roses, are La France, Louis Van Houtte, Hermosa, Giorie de Dijon, Perle des Jardins. These bloom all the summer long, especially if well pruned, and this is best done by cutting the roses, bud and bloom, as fast as they appear. The stingy florist saves the first flowers, and thereby looses many later ones - not heeding that wherever one rose is cut with plenteous stem, two or three will appear in its place.

To the lover of flowers no one kind can afford more pleasure or profit with so little labor as the rose. It bids fair to become the favorite among all our summer and autumn flowers. ' Even the popular chrysanthemum cannot in our autumn days quite eclipse the equally popular rose. - H. K., Germantown, O.