SELECTION. 147 



they will invite, and ought to satisfy, special criticism — 

 knowledge of habit, and experience in pruning, will be 

 indispensable. Melancholy results must inevitably ensue 

 from ignorance or inattention ; and I have shuddered to 

 see examples of both in long lanky trees, without any 

 lateral shoots, flowerless and leafless for three-fourths of 

 their height, reminding one of those shorn disgusting 

 poodles, profanely termed by their proprietors " lions," as 

 they stand upon their execrable hind legs to beg. But not 

 upon them — not upon the helpless object — but on the bar- 

 barous owner, we must expend our noble rage ; upon those 

 who have brought innocent loveliness to the whipping-post, 

 or rather the pillory, and compelled her to look the w^ords 

 which St Simeon Stylites moaned — 



'* Patient on this tall pillar, I have borne 



Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow." 



The best plan of growing these Roses, which a long ex- 

 perience has taught me, is this : To prepare and enrich 

 your soil as I have advised in Chapters VI. and VII., and 

 then to fix firmly therein the pillar which is to support the 

 trees. Of what material is this pillar to be ? — wood or 

 iron ? The former commends itself to the eye (and the 

 pocket) at once ; and I well remember the satisfaction with 



