Iv PLANTING 58 
For perfection of culture, which is the principal 
object of these pages, the best situation must be 
chosen, even in defiance of artistic surroundings. 
And for my own personal taste I may say that, 
given the most perfectly arranged Rosarium that 
ever was seen, I would leave it for a few plants in 
a bed in the kitchen garden with cabbages on one 
’ side and onions on the other, if there alone could be 
found the perfect blooms. 
As to the shape of the beds, it seems evident that 
they should not be so wide as to necessitate treading 
upon the soil to reach and cut the blooms. This 
points to long and comparatively narrow beds, and 
when you have them there seems no escape from 
actual rows, following the shape of the beds, 
whether straight or curved. Anything else would 
waste the precious room, for if the whole bed be 
made of the best soil and fed and manured equally, 
the room that will hold another plant 7s precious. 
Straight rows may be condemned as formal, and so 
they are, but they are thoroughly practical and 
economical, and undoubtedly the best for an 
exhibitor, who wants to be able to go over all his 
plants easily and expeditiously. 
My own Rose beds are simple parallelograms five- 
and-a-half feet wide, and such beds may be as long as 
you like. I may wish mine were longer than they are 
but not wider. Longitudinally they are separated 
by grass paths of the same width, and there should 
be cross paths here and there, but not too many. 
Grass paths are much superior to gravel in appear- 
ance and in cost of keeping in order; and of course 
if the Rose beds are made out of a meadow or 
pasture, the grass is simply left. These paths 
