2 THE GARDENER. [Jan. 



wishes we shall give reports of the most important of those held 

 (luring the present 3^ear, even if we have to add an additional 

 half-sheet to prevent the abridgment of our usual matter. 



AVe shall be happy to receive communications from our 

 readers on all matters connected with Horticulture and Floricul- 

 ture, whether these be intended to convey or elicit information. 

 Anything that can give impetus to the great horticultural wave 

 which we hope ere long to see inundating the whole land, and 

 carrying with it increased happiness, comfort, and refinement, 

 alike to the dwellers in the humble cottage and the lordly hall, 

 shall have our earnest and persevering attention. 



THE ROSE. 



{Continued from page 517 of 1868.) 

 CHAPTER VI. — MANURES. 



I OPENED noiselessly the other morning, that I might enjoy a father's 

 gladness, the door of a room in which my little boy, " six off," was at 

 his play. He was evidently entertaining an illustrious visitor, a beloved 

 and honoured guest. The table, surrounded by every available chair, 

 with a fire-screen for the front door, and a music-stool, inverted atop 

 to represent the main stack of chimneys, was converted into a palace of 

 art. The banquet had just commenced, and the courteous host was re- 

 commending to his distinguished guest (a very large and handsome black 

 retriever, by name " Colonel ") the viands before him. These viands, 

 upon a cursory glance through the chair-legs, did not strike me as of 

 an appetising or digestible character — the two iiieces cle resistance con- 

 sisting of a leg-rest and a small coal-scuttle, and the side-dishes being 

 specimens of the first Atlantic Telegraph Cable, presented to me by 

 Sir Charles Bright, with a selection of exploded cartridges, sea-shells, 

 ninepins, and keys. In the vivid imagination of childhood, notwith- 

 standing, they represented all the luxuries dearest to the palate of 

 youth ; and if the Colonel, who, by the by, was in full uniform, made 

 from the supplement of the ' Times ' newspaper, and was decore with 

 the Order of the String and Penwiper, had partaken of a tithe of the 

 delicacies pressed on him, and according to the order in which they 

 were served, there must have been inevitably speedy promotion in his 

 regiment. The entertainment commenced with cheese, passed on to 



