REQUIREMENTS OF THE ROSE 133 



locality became mother and grandmother of a numerous progeny 

 within ia twelve-month, for every fragment broken for a friendly visitor 

 took root and gave branches for new breaking and new rooting. Poor, 

 indeed, has always been the California home which has not its climbing 

 roses high as a house and its bush or tree rose as big as a barn the 

 constant joy of the resident and the wonder of the tourist. 



Space cannot be given to description of these rose-wonders of Cali- 

 fornia and yet the distant readers may justly claim something specific. 

 Let them be content with the records of a Beauty of Glazenwood near 

 Los Angeles, growing to the top of a eucalyptus tree eighty feet high 

 and turning its support into a colossal pillar of bloom of exquisite rose- 

 pink and pale yellow; of a La Marque at Santa Clara encompassing 

 sides and roof of a cottage to an area which may be inferred from the 

 measurement of its main stem, which was forty-four inches in cir- 

 cumference just above the ground. And to these may be added the 

 fuller details of a rose bush at Ventura three feet in circumference at 

 the ground. The first branch, which juts out at a height of about four 

 feet from the ground, is eight inches in diameter. It was planted in 

 1876 from a slip obtained at the Centennial Exhibition, and, although 

 several wagon-loads of limbs are annually pruned off, it now covers 

 an area of nearly 2000 square feet. 



Requirements of the Rose. The rose is a very grateful plant in 

 California. In all parts of the State it finds conditions to its liking. 

 It makes glorious growth by the seashore, in the coast valleys, in the 

 great interior valley, in the foothills of the Sierra, and it goes up the 

 mountain sides, thriving at as great an elevation as permanent habita- 

 tions have yet been carried. It accepts all wholesome soils, from 

 heavy clay to light loam, providing it can find an adequate degree of 

 moisture and it endures hardships during the dry season to break 

 forth into the gladness of the California winter during which it makes 

 a grand bloom, maintaining it into the early summer without aid from 

 the grower, or receiving such help in irrigation will either reward it 

 by continuous bloom, or, taking a brief rest in midsummer, will break 

 forth into a new spring-like bloom in the delicious autumn days. 



But though the rose will do this for itself, and almost by itself, it 

 ill befits California hospitality to place such stress upon it. It is more 

 easy to grow great roses on the heavier rather than the lighter loams, 

 and easier to improve a clay toward the loam type, as is discussed in 

 detail in Chapter III, than to get such degree of firmness and retentive- 

 ness as the rose enjoys in the sandier soils and yet these, too, are 

 capable of sustaining grand rose plants with generous use of well- 

 rotted cow manure and water. Perhaps the amateur should remember 

 that the rose, more than many other flowers, depends upon what he 

 does for it, generously and intelligently. 



