ROSES FOR EXHIBITION. 223 



ments in readiness for his steed — must be armed 

 before he competes with those weapons which I 

 have named before as essential to success, and 

 which I must once more ask leave to commend. 

 He must have an enthusiastic love of the Rose — 

 not the tepid attachment which drawls its faint 

 encomium: ''She's a nicish girl, and a fellow might 

 do worse," but the true devotion, which sighs 

 from its very soul : '' I must, I will win thee, my 

 queen, my queen !" He must have a good posi- 

 tion, a home meet for his bride. He must have 

 for his Roses a free circulation of air, a healthful, 

 breezy situation, with a surrounding fence, not too 

 high, not too near, which shall break the force of 

 boisterous winds, temper their bitterness ere they 

 enter the fold, and give shelter, but not shade, to 

 his Roses. He must have a good garden-soil, 

 well drained, well dug, well dunged. And having 

 these indispensable adjuncts, he may order his 

 Show-Roses. 



"Thanks, dear professor," here exclaims the 

 enraptured pupil (I am mocking now with a 

 savage satisfaction those dreadful scientific dia- 

 logues which vexed our little hearts in childhood); 

 ''your instructions are indeed precious — far more 

 so than the richest jam, than ponies, than cricket, 

 or than hide-and-seek; but may we interrupt you 



