SELECTION. 149 



Melancholy results must inevitably ensue from 

 ignorance or inattention ; and I have shud- 

 dered to see examples of both in long lanky 

 trees, without any lateral shoots, flowerless and 

 leafless for three-fourths of their height, remind- 

 ing one of those shorn disgusting poodles, 

 profanely termed by their proprietors " lions," as 

 they stand upon their execrable hind legs to beg. 

 But not upon them — not upon the helpless ob- 

 ject — but on the barbarous owner, we must expend 

 our noble rage ; upon those who have brought in- 

 nocent loveliness to the whipping-post, or rather 

 the pillory, and compelled her to look the words 

 which St. Simeon Stylites moaned : 



** Patient on this tall pillar I have borne 



Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow." 



The best plan of growing these Roses, which 

 a long experience has taught me, is this : To pre- 

 pare and enrich your soil as I have advised in 

 Chapters VI. and VII., and then to fix firmly 

 therein the pillar which is to support the trees. Of 

 what material is this pillar to be? — wood or 

 iron ? The former commends itself to the eye 

 (and the pocket) at once ; and I well remember 

 the satisfaction with which I surveyed an early ex- 

 periment with larch poles, the lower part well 



