yS A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



parent soil, intermixing* lime, rammel, or sand (if 

 you can get them), and then there remains, so far 

 as the soil is concerned, but one addition to be 

 made, and of this we will treat presently. 



First crossing, if you please, the little bridge 

 which divides my Rose-gardens, and passing over 

 the narrow streamlet, from a cold clay soil, fertil- 

 ized by cultivation, to a light, porous, feeble loam, 

 best described by a laborer digging it when he 

 said : " It had no more natur in it than work'us 

 soup." Nor was it ever my intention to try Roses 

 in this meagre material, until a friend happened 

 one day to say of it : *' No man in England could 

 grow Roses t/ierc." Then, fired by a noble am- 

 bition, or pig-headed perverseness, whichever you 

 please, I resolved to make the experiment. I took 

 a spade as soon as he was gone, for a happy 

 thought had struck me that this soil might resem- 

 ble that boy-beloved confection, Trifle, which, 

 thin, frothy, and tasteless, in the upper stratum, 

 has below a delicious subsoil of tipsy-cake and 

 jam. So I found out in my garden, not far from 

 the surface, a dark, fat, greasy marl, rich as the 

 nuptial almond-paste, and looking as though the 

 rain had washed into it all the goodness of the up- 

 per ground. The lean and the fat, the froth and 

 the preserves, were soon mixed for me by the 



