SOILS. 69 



views on the subject were not universally accepted 

 by a large dinner-party in his own house. 



How often has it been said to me : " Oh what 

 a garden is yours for Roses ! We have a few nice 

 flowers, but of course we can't compete v/ith you. 

 Old Mr. Drone, our gardener, tells us that he 

 never saw such a soil as yours, nor so bad a soil 

 as ours, for Roses." And herein is a fact in hor- 

 ticulture — Mr. Drone always has a bad soil. An 

 inferior gardener, whether his inferiority is caused 

 by want of knowledge or want of industry (the 

 latter as a rule), is always snarling at his soil. 

 Whatever fails, flowers, fruits, or vegetables, 

 shrubs or trees, the fault rests ever with the soil. 

 Hearing some of these malcontents declaim, you 

 would almost conclude that a tree, planted over- 

 night, would be discovered next morning pros- 

 trate over the wall upon its back, eliminated by 

 the soil in disgust. Only by superhuman efforts, 

 they will assure you, combined with extraordinary 

 talent, can anything be induced to grow but 

 weeds. The place might be, like Hood's Haunted 

 House, 



" Under some prodigious ban 

 Of excommunication" — 



a place from which Jupiter had warned Phoebus 

 and Zephyrus and Pomona and Flora, on pain of 



