JO A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



hot thunder-bolts. They come there, of course^ 

 from a spirit of disobedience, but only on the sly, 

 and seldom. The old, old story — the muff, com- 

 ing from his wicket with his second cipher, and 

 blaming the uneven ground, the ball which "broke 

 in" with a wild defiance of every natural law, and 

 baffled all that science knew ; the bad shot, whose 

 "beast of a gun" is always on half-cock when the 

 rare woodcock comes, and on whose eyes the sun 

 sheds ever his extra-dazzling rays ; the bad rider, 

 who ''never gets a start" (nor wants one), and 

 whose fractious horse " won't go near the brook" 

 at the very crisis of the run. 



The good gardener, on the contrary, the man 

 whose heart is in his work, makes the most of his 

 means, instead of wasting his time in useless lam- 

 entations. He knows that this world is no longer 

 Eden, and that only by sweat of brow and brain 

 can he bring flower or fruit to perfection. " Let 

 me dig about it and dung it," he says of the 

 sterile tree ; knowing as it was known when the 

 words were spoken, more than eighteen hundred 

 years ago, that to prune and to feed the roots is 

 to reclaim and to restore, wherever there is hope 

 of restoration.* 



^ The occasional lifting and tap-root pruning of Standard Rose- 

 trees is beneficial, as a rule ; but exceptions should be made, when the 



