'j6 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



and Property of Soils, '* which will produce per- 

 manent friabihty in clay soils — such as sand, Hme, 

 soot, burnt clay, loose light vegetable matter, or 

 long unfermented manure — will alter its texture 

 and improve its quality." Of these, having tried 

 them fairly, I have found that which is happily the 

 closest to our hand (like a thousand other privi- 

 leges and blessings, had we but eyes to see them) 

 to be the most advantageous — I mean burnt clay. 

 Some of our modern writers and lecturers speak 

 of it as of a recent discovery ; but the Romans 

 knew it, and used incinerated soils two thousand 

 years before Sir Humphry Davy wrote: — ** The 

 process of burning renders the soil less compact, 

 less tenacious and retentive of moisture ; and 

 properly applied, may convert a matter that was 

 stiff, damp, and in consequence cold, into one 

 powdery, dry, and warm, and much more proper 

 as a bed for vegetable life." Let those Rosarians, 

 therefore, who have heavy tenacious soils, having 

 lirst tapped their dropsical patients by drain and 

 trench, promote their convalescence by a combina- 

 tion of ancient and modern, external and internal, 

 pharmacy; let them unite the old custom of 

 cautery, as they burn their clay, and the new pre- 

 cepts of homcEopathy, siniilia similibus cura7itiir. 

 And with this object let them save everything, as 



