CONVERTING UGLINESS TO BEAUTY 63 



shed, with a thatched or tiled roof, may soon be 

 made beautiful by a planting of these beneficent 

 Rambling Roses. Many of the buildings, shed or 

 barn, cowhouse or stable, may still have the weather- 

 boarding undefiled by gas-tar, and if so, its silvery 

 grey colour is a ground whose becoming quality can 

 hardly be beaten for tender pink and rosy Roses. 

 Dead or unprofitable old orchard trees, too, may 

 have their smaller branches sawn off and be 

 planted with Roses. If they are shaky, some stout 

 oaken props, also rose-clothed, will steady them for 

 many a year. When once these Roses get hold and 

 grow vigorously the amount of their yearly growth 

 is surprising. 



Generally among these farm buildings there is, in 

 the enclosed yard, a simple shelter for animals, made 

 of posts supporting a lean-to roof, either against a 

 barn or a high wall. This, without alteration, or 

 merely by knocking through the two ends, may be 

 made into a delightful shaded cloister, each post 

 having its Rose. There would not need to be a 

 climbing Rose to every post, but a climbing and a 

 pillar Rose alternately. The lean-to roof would need 

 some slight trellising, the rougher the better. No 

 material for this is so good as oak, not sawn but 

 split. Split wood lasts much longer than sawn, as it 

 rends in its natural lines of cleavage and leaves fairly 

 smooth edges. Sawing cuts cruelly across and across 

 the fibres, leaving a fringe or ragged pile of torn and 

 jagged fibre which catches and holds the wet and 

 invites surface decay. 



