32 EVERSLEY GARDENS 



that week or two of torment, when I find 

 myself in an ancient gown and apron, armed 

 with thick gloves, and standing, secateur in 

 hand, before a big Rose bed. While at night 

 long shoots and short shoots, sappy shoots and 

 hard shoots, plump pink buds and crimson 

 leaves, dance in the dark before my weary 

 eyes, renewing the distracting questions that 

 have occupied my mind all day, What shall 

 I cut? What shall I leave? On no subject 

 in the garden are there such diversities of 

 opinion as on this matter. There are ad- 

 vocates of hard pruning ; and others who 

 swear as fervently by light pruning. There 

 are those who hold to early pruning ; and 

 others who hold just as fiercely to late ; 

 though the old-fashioned plan of pruning all 

 round in the Autumn has been pretty generally 

 abandoned in England. I was, however, sur- 

 prised to see two or three years ago that in 

 Paris, at all events in the public gardens, it 

 still obtains. The standard Roses round the 

 Louvre, for instance, were all close pruned 

 before Christmas. But though French winters 



