1869.] EOSES : MARECHAL NIEL ON GLOIEE DE DIJON. 157 



Neither is the water that conveys the manure useless ; very far from it. 

 The extra water conveyed to plants by the use of sewage may be almost as 

 valuable as a covering of manure to green crops. In fact, it is not at all certain 

 that it does not become a manure. Plants seem to have the power of decom- 

 posing water, and absorbing into themselves the gases of which it is composed. 

 Thus what was water to-day may be a sweet cauliflower or juicy green peas 

 to-morrow. More than this, as has already been indicated, water is nature's 

 great solvent, the grand mediator between solids and gases. Water is the wide 

 drinking cistern of vegetable life. Empty it, and that life withers and dies. 

 Keep it scantily supplied, and that life languishes and droops. Fill it liberally, 

 and that life leaps up in gladness, and enrobes itself in its most verdant dress, in 

 token of its gratitude. 



Man necessarily uses much of the water of the world. He takes it clean, and 

 it becomes foul upon his hands. Common sense might have taught him not to 

 return this dirty water to the general supply of clean. By such a process the 

 whole stock of water would be polluted. To this, then, it must not return. 

 The air also refuses to take it away, unless at the terrible risk of ruining our 

 health. It gives us due notice through our senses of the danger we incur by 

 converting it into a common sewer for the removal of our pollutions. In this 

 dilemma we turn from the water and the air, to the earth, with its covering 

 of plants. These together are ready not only to take all the water we have 

 fouled, but to return most of it to us again clean. Like finely-meshed sieves, 

 they permit the pure water to pass through, and hold back within themselves 

 every foreign substance that rendered it foul. More than this, they change 

 these pollutions themselves, as we have already seen, into substances of the 

 highest utility, sweetness, and beauty. 



• In this way, the noxious, impure offscourings of our houses become a clear 

 gain to our gardens, and plants are enabled to fulfil their high and holy mission 

 of preserving the w r orld clean for our use and enjoyment. This Domestic Aid to 

 Garden Culture is within the reach of all, and its universal acceptance could only 

 increase the health, comfort, and happiness of our homes. 



Hardwicke House. D. T. Fish. 



ROSES : MARECHAL NIEL ON GLOIRE DE DIJON. 



7£, J HE time for budding Eoses will shortly arrive, and many will be looking 

 around them for suitable stocks upon which to bud, and thus to increase 

 the number of some especial favourites. I need, therefore, make no 

 excuse for offering a few remarks upon the merits of Gloire de Dijon as a 

 stock upon which to bud that most lovely of all roses, Marechal Niel. 



Two years ago, as well as last year, I placed some buds of the Marechal into 

 about the middle and more matured part of some grossly grown shoots of Gloire 

 de Dijon. The buds having taken, I reduced the young shoots upon the stock. 



