90 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



age ; but beyond the contribution of this occa- 

 sional homily, it is, of course, no affair of ours. 

 Each man assures his neighbor that the process 

 of desiccation is quite easy, and the art of deodor- 

 izing almost nice; but nobody " goes in." The 

 reader, I have no doubt, has with me had large 

 experience of this perversity in neighbors, and 

 ofttimes has been perplexed and pained by 

 their dogged strange reluctance to follow the very 

 best advice. There was at Cambridge, some thirty 

 years ago, an insolent, foul-mouthed, pugnacious 

 sweep, who escaped for two terms the sublime 

 licking which he ** annexed" finally, because no 

 one liked to tackle the soot. There were scores 

 of undergraduates, to whom pugilism was a thing 

 of beauty and a joy for ever, who had the power 

 and the desire to punish his impudence, but they 

 thought of the close wrestle, — they reflected on 

 the "hug," and left him. To drop metaphor, 

 there is no more valuable manure ; but it is, from 

 circumstances which require no explanation, 

 more suitable for the farm than the garden, 

 especially as we have a substitute, quite as effi- 

 cacious, and far more convenient and agreeable 

 in use. 



No, not "burnt earth." I spoke as earnestly 

 as I could of the value of that application in my 



