1869.] THE ROSE. 3 



hasty-pudding and beer, wLich was followed in rapid succession by- 

 peaches, beef, roley-poley, hare, more hasty-pudding, honey, apricots, 

 boiled rabbits, &c. "And now. Colonel, dear," were the last words I 

 heard, ''you shall have some custard and pine-apple, and then we'll 

 smoke a cigar." 



In like manner does the wee golden-haired lassie delight to do 

 homage to the queen of her little world, her doll, watching her 

 tenderly, and singing a lullaby which, regarding the condition of those 

 two immense blue eyes, appears to be quite hopeless ; then decking 

 her with every bit of finery which she can beg from mammy or nurse, 

 and waiting upon her with a fond untiring service. 



And even so did I, in the childhood of that life which is always 

 young — do not our hearts foreknow, my brothers, the happy truth, 

 which old men certify, that the love of flowers is of those few earthly 

 pleasures which age cannot wither? — even so did I, in 



" My sallet days, 

 When I was green in judgment," 



essay, with an enthusiastic though ofttimes mistaken zeal, to propitiate 

 and to serve the Kose. And specially, as with my little boy and his 

 large idol, in the matter of food. I tried to please her with a great 

 diversity of diet. I made anxious experiment of a multiplicity of 

 manures — organic and inorganic, animal and vegetable, cheap and 

 costly, home and foreign. I laboured to discover her favourite dish as 

 earnestly as the alchymist to realise the Philosopher's Stone, but I dif- 

 fered from the alchymist in one essential point — I found it I 



Where ? Not down among the bones. I tried bones of all denomi- 

 nations — bones in their integrity, bones crushed, bones powdered, bones 

 dissolved with sulphuric and muriatic acid, as Liebig bade ; and I have 

 a very high admiration of the bone as a most sure and fertilising 

 manure. For agricultural purposes, for turnips, for grass recently laid 

 down, or for a starved exhausted pasture, whereupon you may write your 

 name with it ; and in horticulture, for the lighter soils, for the vine- 

 border, for plants (the Pelargonium especially), it is excellent ; but in 

 the Rosary, although a magnum (I feel in writing the pun like the little 

 boy who chalked " No Popery " on Doctor Wiseman's door, half 

 ashamed of the deed, and desirous to run), it is not the summum honum 

 of manures. 



Nor up the chimney — though, for Roses on the Manetti Stock, and 

 for Tea-Roses, soot is good manure, and useful as a surface-dressing 

 for hot, dry soils. Nor among the autumn leaves, although these also, 

 decayed to mould, are very advantageous to the Teas, Noisettes, and 

 Bourbons, and to all Roses grown on their own roots. Sure and great 



