20 SOILS AND THEIR PEEPARATION. 



Chalk itself is hopeless for Roses, but as a sub- 

 soil it is excellent. He who would grow Roses on a 

 chalk soil has indeed got to put his thinking cap on to 

 make a garden. Old ponds have to be cleared out, 

 hedges and ditches searched for soil ; turf, no matter 

 how thin, has to be stored, and every opportunity taken 

 to cart in a load of good loam to mix with it. In some 

 districts the soil is so poor that there is nothing for it 

 but to cart in a proportion of loam to mix with what 

 you can get. But when this is done, ofttimes the dis- 

 trict is too wind-swept for flowers to do well. How- 

 ever, shelter can be made and soil can be gathered and 

 imported even in the worst district. The same applies 

 to a sandy neighbourhood, but here fewer troubles 

 await us, for soil will always take a large percentage of 

 sand ; the only difficulty, of course, is to get it retentive 

 enough. On a sandy soil keep the surface well sup- 

 plied with leaves and leaf-mould. This, with old 

 manure forked in, will help to conserve the moisture. 

 Leaves have a great value, not only for keeping the 

 moisture in the soil, but also for keeping out the frost, 

 and ultimately in enriching the soil. Next to chalk I 

 think a gravel soil is one of the most disheartening, for 

 it entails so much labour. In any case, whether a bed 

 is large or small, it must all be got out to a depth of 

 two feet to three feet. This done, and your beds filled 

 in with good soil, Roses generally do well, for the 

 drainage is good, and long roots soon find their way 

 through the gravel. 



I do not wish to give the amateur the idea that it 

 is necessary to go to the labour or expense of emptying 

 every Rose-bed of soil and of filling it up again to suit 

 the best requirements of the Rose. This is not so, 

 except in the case of small beds, when I think it is well 

 worth the trouble. In the formation of large beds on 

 unbroken land, it will suffice to throw back the top 

 soil, and, having taken out a section of the bed, to 

 break up the bottom and make it up as already de- 

 scribed. Of course, in a well-dug garden this will not 

 be necessary, for already there will exist a good depth 

 of soil that has been turned over and over for years. 



