64 THE BOOK OF THE ROSE CHAP. 
of water. We all know that in a hyacinth glass 
a fine plant and a noble flower may be produced 
from the bulb with nothing but water given. We 
also know from this glass culture that the roots of 
hyacinths do go down some depth, considerably 
more than the height of the glass. And it should 
further be stated that the sand in the soil spoken of 
rests upon a water-bearing stratum of clayey peat, 
in fact the general water-level of the whole country. 
But it seems almost impossible that hyacinth roots 
should reach down vertically for four feet or more, 
and quite impossible that they should start and form 
such a length of root without the aid of water. If, 
however, the water was always slightly rising up 
through the sand, and moreover the roots had 
a power of attraction almost equivalent to suction, 
the impossibility would vanish. And so it is. Water, 
or rather moisture, does rise through the soil by 
capillary attraction, as it will up through a sponge 
or piece of flannel. Just so, moisture is always more 
or less rising up through the earth, though of course 
a quantity in time of rain or immediately after sinks 
down through it. It rises most of all when the sun 
shines hot and the surface is dry, and then the Rose, 
which likes heat and a friable air-permeated surface 
above and a “cool bottom”’ below, rejoices in the 
rich moisture which the roots appropriate as it rises 
up through the manure from below. 
In thus recommending the placing of all manure 
at planting time beneath the horizontally lying roots, 
and incorporating none in the soil at their own 
level, I must make the proviso that the soil at that 
level is, as it generally would be, sufficiently rich in 
“humus.” This is decayed organic matter, animal 
