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THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GLIDE. 



air and soil offer the best conditions for 

 roses of every size, shape, and variety ; 

 and such is almost the case at Stoke 



Newington, and it may be that even at 

 the four-mile radius, the proximity of a 

 floorcloth factory or a hungry soil, com- 

 pel the amateur to consider himself on 

 equal terms with those who live two or 

 three miles nearer the centre of the me- 

 tropolis. If I could command acres here 

 instead of rods, I could grow the tallest 

 weeping roses, because the soil is a sound 

 yellow loam, inclining to clay, and at four 

 feet deep it is the best quality of brick 

 earth, and would grow wonderful wheat 

 and cabbages. But on the other side of 

 Newington High Street, and not more 

 than half a mile nearer town, my friend 

 Mr. Denny cannot get a rose of any kind 

 to live ; and another mile nearer London, 

 my friend Mr. Spencer, of Dalston, is in 

 the same unhappy predicament. 



Generally speaking, the soil of London 

 gardens is a villainous black, indescribable 

 substance, neither loam, nor clay, nor 

 sand, and the wonder is that many good 

 things grow in it so well as they do. 

 People take it into their heads to have 

 roses, they order standards and plant 

 them in this stuff, perhaps very near 

 boundary walls and under the shade of 

 trees. I have shown how to get the 

 maximum of light and air in any confined 

 space in the chapters on " laying out ? ' 

 suburban plots in my "Town Garden," and 

 there only needs to put a little proper soil 

 at their roots for every townsman to have 

 his plot of roses, whether among the thick 

 of the houses, or in the outskirts, where 

 there is often more factory smoke than in 

 the hearts of cities. The general objec- 

 tion to worked roses in town gardens, is 

 one which has a scientific basis. No matter 

 what the rose, whether hybrid, perpetual, 

 Bourbon, China, or noisette, the stock is 

 the same, and therefore we are dealing 

 with the dog rose, so far as soil, manur- 

 ing, and watering are concerned, under 

 whatever circumstances and in whatever 

 positions we may plant them. Now, 

 thrifty as the dog rose is when it can bite 

 a piece of mamu-ed clay or fat yellow 



loam, it is far less adaptable to soils of 

 various qualities and textures than certain 

 cultivated roses, so that with roses on 

 their own roots, we have a choice of those 

 which will take to the place and like it. 

 With worked roses we have no choice, but 

 the briar always, which has one fixed con- 

 stitution, instead of ornamental roses, 

 which have many. To make this case 

 plainer, suppose a person to choose Geant 

 des Batailles, General Jacqueminot, Sou- 

 venir de Malmaison, Mrs. Bosanquet, and 

 Duchess of Sutherland, just to see if roses 

 will answer in a town garden. If he has 

 standards they are all of the same habit 

 as regards soil, because all on the same 

 kind of roots, therefore he has one consti- 

 tution to deal with. If on their own 

 bottoms he has fire constitutions to deal 

 with, each with its own peculiar mode of 

 rooting and power of resisting untoward 

 influences. His chances of success, there- 

 fore, are as four to one ; out of his five 

 sorts, one, two, three, four, or five may 

 answer, and he will know which of them 

 are likely to pay him if planted in quan- 

 tity, and each and all of them may thrive 

 in a place where no rose would live long 

 on a briar, simply because of the briar 

 being out of its element. This point 

 settled, brings us to the choice of roses 

 for town culture, and here let me give a 

 last reason in favour of dwarf plants, and 

 it is this, that in very smoky places they 

 may be covered with bell-glasses, as re- 

 eommended by Mr. Cranston in his capi- 

 tal sixpenny book. When the neighbour- 

 ing brewery sends its blackest clouds 

 abroad at certain hours of the day ; when 

 the floorcloth factory diffuses a more than 

 ordinary amount of gaseous poison, then 

 the bell-glasses would screen the roses 

 from the worst of the blacks, and keep a 

 moisture about them beneficial to their 

 foliage and swelling blooms, and the 

 glasses could be removed at night, early 

 morning, or at such other times as the 

 nature of the district might warrant, be- 

 cause there is a periodicity of such things 

 in towns, and an observant cultivator will 

 know how to arrange his plan of giving 

 air and excluding it, so as to get the best 

 and avoid the worst. 



My gavdeu is three miles from the 

 Post Office, it is moderately open, and the 

 soil is a sound loam that had never had a 

 spade deeper in it than two feet before I 

 took it. I can get any quantity of silky 

 yellow loam or stiff clay that I like to dig 

 for, and smoke and the shade of trees are 

 the only drawbacks to rose growing, I 

 have been, during the last three years, 



