238 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



Having made timely arrangements to secure 

 your supply of stocks before the severities of 

 winter are likely to prevent you from planting 

 (should sharp frost surprise you during the process 

 of removal, you must *' lay in" your Briers securely, 

 digging a hole for them, placing them in a bundle 

 therein, covering the roots well with earth, and 

 throwing an old mat over all), you must be most 

 vigilant in your selection of the stocks themselves. 

 Some gardeners display in this matter a lamenta- 

 ble indifference. Their motto seems to be Stem- 

 viata quid facmnt ? — why should not one Brier 

 be as good as another ? Their budding-ground 

 might be an asylum for the deformed, the weak, 

 the aged, instead of the school for healthful youth 

 and the training-ground for heroes. Let the ama- 

 teur, avoiding this fatal error, and remembering as 

 his rule : Ex quovis ligno non fit Mcrciiriiis, select 

 young, straight, sapful, well-rooted stocks, that 

 the scion may be vigorous as the sire. Let these 

 be planted as soon as he receives them — his col- 

 lector bringing them in daily, and not keeping them 

 at home, as the manner of some is, until he gets 

 a quantity — in rows, the Briers i foot, the rows 3 

 feet apart. * 



*" Since the publication of the Sixth Edition, a new method of 

 raising Brier stocks from cuttings has been most successfully tried by 



