76 THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



days of January — if there are any — set the Manettis growing, the 

 frosts of February kill all the soft growth, and the winds of March 

 suck the sap out of the harder wood lower down ; and before the 

 genial moisture and warmth of April has begun to revive the face 

 of nature, all of the rose is dead but the mere roots, which in a case 

 of this sort die last, because most protected. But the roots revive 

 and throw up suckers, and if the rosarian is a rosarian he soon dis- 

 covers what is the matter, roots them out, and uses them as stocks 

 to work again, or without much ado deposits them in the muck-pit. 

 But the rosarian who is not a rosarian takes delight in seeing the 

 nice blueish leafage of the shoots that come from the roots of his 

 departed roses, and waits for bloom — Heaven help him ! he may 

 wait, he will never see it. This hypothetical case illustrates the 

 value of own-root plants ; for in the first place they are not so apt 

 to rush into growth, and so expose themselves to the northern 

 blast ; and in the second place, if the blast lays them low, there is a 

 power left in the roots to make them rise again, fresher and stronger 

 than ever, true to the characters they bore, and worthy of such a 

 glorious resurrection. The Arabs are said to be the authors of the 

 table of the phoenix. In the great flat lands of Mesopotamia, where 

 roses grow in thousands, there are severe frosts at times that do 

 much havoc, but no one can trace their effects when spring returns, 

 for lo ! the plants that were killed in the ground spring up again, 

 and testify that the breasts of mother earth are not yet dry, nor the 

 current of her blood checked in its energetic flowing. Job, who 

 lived in Idumea, where the fable of the phoenix had in ancient days 

 its place amongst a thousand similar fancies wrought out of truest 

 philosophy, had himself speculated on this renewing power of the 

 root as affording a lesson for the meditative mind. Be says there is 

 hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and 

 through the scent of waters it will bud. In like manner, every rose 

 will renew itself from the roots, if the roots are its own ; and there 

 is hope of it, therefore, if it be cut down. 



This is a capital time to plant roses, indeed the next best time to 

 November ; and if own-root roses can be got, they are to be preferred 

 to all others, even at five times the price. I wish the thousands of 

 amateur rosarians could be supplied from the nurseries with such 

 plants as mine, furnished with clean stems half an inch or more in 

 diameter, and which may be cut to any height or any shape at the 

 will of the cultivator. But they cannot be got for money, though 

 they may be for love, for any one can raise them, and it puzzles me 

 beyond all that is commonplace in puzzling that the amateurs, 

 having giving the trade every necessary opportunity to do what is 

 wanted, do not take the business into their own hands, and propagate 

 for themselves. But I am too fast; for since the publication of the 

 " Bose Book" many letters have come to Land in which I am in- 

 foimed of the success of amateurs in raising roses from cuttings, 

 layers, and ejes ; and if I wait a little longer, I have no doubt I 

 shall pee the beginning of a passion for raising roses from seed ; and 

 when that comes, the rose will enjoy a higher place amongst us than 

 it does now, and we shall be less ready to part with hard-earned cash 



