84 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



same natural propensity to send up wild oats and weeds, 

 and to send their tap-roots downwards ; all requiring con- 

 tinuous culture, training, and watchful care ; all dependent, 

 when man has done his best, upon the sunshine and rains of 

 heaven. " Soils," writes Loudon, " not kept friable by 

 cultivation, soon become hardened ;" and so do hearts. But 

 from ourselves, as from our soils, we may eject the evil, 

 introducing the good in its place ; we may grow Roses 

 instead of weeds, if we will. " Upon the same man," writes 

 Richter, who was a florist as well as a philosopher, and 

 seldom appeared in the streets of Bayreuth without a 

 flower in his coat, "as upon a vine-planted mount, there 

 grow more kinds of wine than one : on the south side some- 

 thing little worse than nectar, on the north side something 

 little better than vinegar." But we may level the hill by 

 humbling our pride, and so lay open the whole vineyard 

 before the summer sun. 



I pass now to the consideration of a subject which I 

 believe to be the most important of all to those who desire 

 to grow Roses in perfection. 



