CHAPTER XIV. 



HOW TO SHOW THE ROSE. 



When I first exhibited Roses, the boxes selected for the 

 Queen of Flowers were not what royal boxes ought to be. 

 They were ordinary and heterogeneous ; they were high 

 and low, wide and narrow, painted and plain. Disorder 

 prevailed, as at the Floralia of old ; and Bacchus again ap- 

 peared upon the scene in the cases which had contained his 

 wines, and which, reduced in altitude, and filled with dingy 

 moss, now held the glowing Roses. These were kept alive, 

 auspice y^sailapio, in old physic-bottles filled with water, 

 and plunged to the neck in the moss aforesaid ; but some- 

 times the succulent potato was used to preserve vitality, 

 and I remember well a large hamper, with its lid gracefully 

 recumbent, in which six small Roses uprose from huge 

 specimens of '' Farmers' Profit " — the Poinmes de terre being 

 inserted, but not concealed, in a stratum of ancient hay. 



