80 THE BOOK OF THE ROSE CHAP. 
But after all the earth system is not practicable 
in large towns, and is troublesome to enforce in 
villages. 
There is naturally great difficulty in dealing satis- 
factorily with night-soil as a manure for Roses, and 
often it is probably not worth the trouble when it can 
be dug in quickly for vegetable crops, and other good 
manure is procurable. Mr. William Paul, in his large 
work, The Rose Garden, describes a mode of using 
it which involves mixing with earth, burying for six 
months, and afterwards mixing and turning over once 
or twice more. This seems to require a good deal of 
labour, but then it must be noticed that he considers 
it the best of all manures for Roses on light soils, and 
that it has a very marked effect on the growth I can 
testify from an instance in my own garden. During 
the winter a quantity of night-soil was deeply buried 
near to a sweet-briar, into which I had put a bud of 
Maréchal Niel; and one of the shoots from that bud, 
being laid along a wall, reached in the course of the 
summer a length of 27 feet. But, on the whole, it 
will be found in most cases that the trouble of dealing 
with it outweighs its value, where other manures are 
to be had. 
Manure from the fowl-house or dove-cote is good, 
but transitory ; it should be kept from rain, and not 
put on in the winter. 
The old custom of burying the carcases of dead 
animals in vine borders is now discredited, and I 
should not recommend it for Roses. Bones, though 
most useful for the phosphates they contain, do not 
supply all the necessary constituents, and had better 
be left to the manufacturers of artificial manures. 
2.—Liquip MAnuRE.—I have hinted at the advan- 
