74 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. . 



knows all this and practises it ivithin doors, 

 stands helpless and hopeless on the soil without. 

 I have walked out of houses where Orchids and 

 stove-plants, and even those hard- wooded inmates 

 of the greenhouse which so thoroughly test the 

 plantsman's skill — those Ericas, for example, which 

 come indeed from the Cape of Good Hope, but 

 too often bring dark despair — were all in admi- 

 rable condition, and have been told as I stood 

 upon soil the facsimile of my own, and better : 

 ** We can't grow Roses." There is only one reply : 

 '* You won't." 



Because I know that Roses may be grown to 

 perfection in the ordinary garden-soil, if they have 

 such a position as I have described in the preced- 

 ing chapter, and if that soil is cultivated — I don't 

 mean occasionally scratched with a rake and 

 tickled with a hoe, or sprinkled with manure from 

 a pepper-box, but thoroughly drained, and dug, 

 and dunged. I am not theorizing, nor playing the 

 game of speculation with my readers — not writ- 

 ing from a fertile soil, regardless of the difficulties 

 of others, like the Irish absentee, who, dating from 

 his cosy club in London, thus addressed his agent 

 in a dangerous, disaffected district: — "Don't let 

 them think that, by shooting you, they will at all 

 intimidate me;" but I have proved that which I 



