254 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



your little gem is lost beside the Koh-i-noor, and your 

 bright star pales before the rising sun its ineffectual fire. 



You will have another advantage in commencing with 

 your finest flowers, because of these you will have (or ought 

 to have) the larger stock, and will thus be able to lay at 

 the same time and in the same order the foundation of 

 your different collections, using the same corner-stone in 

 each (begin always with some glorious Rose, w^hich must 

 attract the judicial eye, and make an impression upon 

 the judicial heart), and assimilating the arrangement, as 

 long as you possess the material. Much labour, head 

 work and leg work, is saved by this plan of simultaneous 

 structure. 



The amateur must not exhibit these larger Roses when 

 they have lost their freshness of colour, or w4ien the petals, 

 opening at the centre, reveal the yellow " eye." He must 

 not place a Rose in his box because it has been superlatively 

 beautiful. In the eyes of her husband, the wife a matron 

 should be lovely as the wife a bride ; but the world never 

 saw her in her Honiton veil, and respectfully votes her a 

 trifle passee. At the same time, let not the exhibitor be 

 over-timid, nor discard a Rose which has reached the sum- 

 mit of perfection, and may descend, he knows not when, 

 but let him bravely and hopefullv set it among its peers. 



