142 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



the patience for these specimens. Chmbing Roses 

 are required, as a rule, to do their work quickly ; 

 and we will therefore proceed to consider those 

 varieties which have been selected by the Rose- 

 merchants, and proposed to us in their catalogues, 

 for this purpose — the Ayrshire, the Evergreen, 

 the Banksian, the Boursault, the Multiflora, and 

 the Hybrid Climbing. 



The Ayrshire and Evergreen Roses — it should 

 be, Evergreen^ if the weather permit — have many 

 claims upon our grateful admiration. If we have 

 an ugly, red-faced, staring wall, which seems to 

 glory in its ugliness, they will hide its deformities 

 more quickly than any other Rose or any other 

 creeper with which I have acquaintance. Only 

 give them a good start, as you give an Irishman 

 " jist a hint" of whisky before you send him on an 

 errand ; and, however adverse the position or the 

 aspect, off they go like lamp-lighters. With their 

 shining leaves, and their pretty clusters of white 

 pink-tinted flowers, they will flourish where no 

 others can grow — in the waste places of the earth, 

 in damp dismal corners, under trees, and up them, 

 if you wish. Upon the blank wall of two new 

 rooms, having a western aspect, I planted Ram- 

 pant sempervirens. Owing to the proximity of 

 another wall and of intermediate shrubs, he was 



