15 



CHAPTER IV. 



SOILS AND THEIR PREPARATION. 



" The Desert shall rejoice and blossom as the Rose." 



— Isaiah. 



Where the wild Rose throws her bloomy spray, 

 there will the cultivated Rose succeed. Where the 

 Elm grows big in field and hedgerow, there the soil 

 is good. 



Few of us choose a house for the quality of its 

 garden soil, and, although aspect and position will 

 greatly determine a decision, yet by far the most im- 

 portant consideration in cases of large houses is soil. 

 Your very health will largely depend upon the soil of a 

 neighbourhood, and whether it be clay, gravel, chalk, 

 or sand, its effects at certain seasons of the year will 

 be felt. If this is the case with men and animals, 

 which it certainly is, it is equally true as regards plant 

 life. I have always maintained that you can grow 

 Roses anywhere, but your soil must in many places be 

 prepared. The true gardener never owns, and seldom 

 knows, defeat. After all, it is not so much the fault 

 of the soil as it is its treatment that brings success or 

 failure. Like the Scotsman who aeclared that there 

 was no such thing as bad whisky, but that some 

 brands were better than others, so I would pronounce 

 on soils. Give me the land and I will give you the 

 garden — yes, and a Rose garden ; A man once showed 

 me hard rock, and said : " Get on with that ! " I 

 replied : " Oh ! that is easy," and I sketched him out 

 a plan of beds ana paths, and proved to him that by 

 the removal of a little stone where the beds were re- 

 quired, a little drainage to follow the fissures in the 



