SOILS. 69 



fer the stolid conviction that the stars in their courses fight 

 against them, that meteorology and geology are their bitter 

 foes. Look over your garden-wall with a beautiful Rose in 

 your coat, and your neighbour, loitering with his hands in 

 his pockets, knee-deep in groundsel, amid his beds un- 

 drained, undug, will sigh from the depths of his divine 

 despair, *' What a soil yours is for the Rose ! " Some of 

 my own friends talk to me regularly as the summer comes, 

 not as though I had any special fondness or took any special 

 pains, but as if my garden would grow excellent Roses 

 whether I liked it or no. At first, and as a neophyte, I 

 used to feel a little irritation when all the glory was given 

 to the ground ; and I remember upon one occasion that I 

 could not refrain from informing a gentleman, who bored 

 me with the old unchanging commentary, that wild Rose- 

 trees transplanted from the hedgerow to my garden in the 

 autumn grew flowers large enough for exhibition the next 

 summer but one. It was the simple fact concerning budded 

 Briers, but he took away the inference, which I blush to 

 own was meant for him, that the transformation was effected 

 by the soil solely ; and he was very angry, I heard after- 

 wards, when his views on the subject were not universally 

 accepted by a large dinner-party in his own house. 



