60 MARKET NURSERY WORK 



between the hybrid perpetuals, teas, hybrid teas, Wichuraianas, 

 pernettianas, etc. ; he would find out which was the best stock 

 for any given variety ; what made a good head as a standard, and 

 what did not. He would satisfy himself as to the special and peculiar 

 treatment appreciated by different varieties, many of which solicit 

 individual treatment. He would understand diseases and what 

 promoted them, and would take steps to forestall them ; keep down 

 the pests almost before they appeared ; maintain the general good 

 health of his stock, and this not only by his close personal obser- 

 vation and the careful keeping of records, but also by the observations 

 and records of others, duly found in the literature of the rose ; 

 for we fear if he depended entirely upon his own observations, 

 which are the most valuable of all, we should have to judge of his 

 knowledge by the whiteness of his hair. But he knows that almost 

 everywhere there are enthusiastic and devoted rosarians experi- 

 menting, searching, testing, recording as much, or more, for other 

 people's benefit as their own. Their only care is to serve the interest 

 and enhance the well-being and beauty of the goddess they so 

 diligently follow. The cumulative results are ungrudgingly placed 

 before us for our absorption and digestion, and seeing that we have 

 only to read we should be churlish and unintelligent indeed if we 

 failed to avail ourselves of so much that is valuable. 



SOILS 



To the work of these good men we are anxious to add our quota, 

 though we cannot hope to add anything new to what is already 

 current knowledge. In so far as the soil is a fair subject for dis- 

 cussion, we can say that we have grown roses on the limestone and 

 clay of the Cotswolds, on the heavy red loam of Devonshire, the 

 alluvial deposits of the Thames Valley, the sandy loam of Surrey, 

 the light, brashy, and the crude clays of the Eastern Counties, 

 the bleak, peaty moorland of Lancashire as well as on its sandy sea 

 front ; and this, surely, is of sufficient range and variety to entitle 

 us to speak with a certain authority. The fact is, that differing 

 widely as these do in character and in climate, we are bound to 

 say that we have been able to grow roses just as successfully in 

 one as in another, though not perhaps so easily ; and this forces 



