146 , THE GARDENER. [April 



who have brought innocent loveliness to the whipping-post, or rather 

 the pillory, and compelled her to look the words which St Shneon 

 Stylites moaned — 



** Patient on this tall pillar, I have borne 

 Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow. " 



The best plan of growing these Eoses, which a long experience has 

 taught me, is this : To prepare and enrich your soil as I have 

 advised in chapters vi. and vii., and then to fix firmly therein the pillar 

 which is to support the trees. Of what material is this pillar to be 1 — 

 Avood or iron 1 The former commends itself to the eye (and the pocket) 

 at once ; and I well remember the satisfaction with which I surveyed 

 an early experiment with larch poles, well charred and tarred, driven 

 deep into the ground, and looking from the very first so very rustic 

 and natural. The Rose-trees grew luxuriantly, and for three or four 

 summers I esteemed myself invincible in the game of pyramids. 

 Then one night there came heavy rain, attended by a hurricane, and 

 when I went out next morning, two of my best trees were lying flat 

 upon the ground, with their roots exposed (the poles, having decayed 

 near the surface, had snapped suddenly) ; and several others were 

 leaning like the tower at Pisa, some hopelessly displaced, and others 

 deformed and broken. Fallen, and about to fall, they looked as 

 though their liquid manure had been mixed too strong for them, and 

 had made them superlatively drunk. Shortly afterwards I had another 

 disaster, caused by a similar decay — the top of a pole, in which two 

 iron arches met each other, giving way to a boisterous wind, and so 

 causing a divorcement between Brennus and Adelaide d' Orleans, long 

 and lovingly united. I would therefore advise, not dwelling upon 

 other disadvantages resulting from the use of wood — such as the pro- 

 duction of fungi, and the open house which it provides for insects — 

 that the supports for Pillar Eoses be of iron. ;N"eatly made and 

 painted, tastefully and sparingly posed, they are never unsightly ; 

 and, enduring as long as the trees themselves, will in the end repay 

 that first outlay which makes them, for some time, an expensive 

 luxury. 



The height and thickness of these single rods will be determined by 

 the position to be occupied, from 5 to 8 feet above the ground being 

 the most common altitudes, and the circumference varying from IJ 

 to 3 inches. Below the surface, their tripod prongs must be deeply 

 and securely fixed from 1 foot to 18 inches in the soil, so as to bear 

 any weight of flowers and foliage, and defy all the royal artillery of 

 ^olus. For arches, the rods may be 7 or 8 feet from the ground, and 

 8 or 9 feet apart. 



