I INTRODUCTION 5 



come and look him up at once if he should be 

 wanted. It will afford him varied interest, exercise, 

 and work in the open air all the year round. In 

 tilling the soil, the special work which God gave to 

 man, he will find many a valuable lesson, which 

 he will be able to tell, with authority and with 

 much interest, to that majority of his unlearned 

 parishioners who are themselves tillers of the soil. If 

 there is no room in the parsonage garden, it is seldom 

 indeed that some little piece of glebe cannot be 

 taken in to be the pride of his heart and the focus 

 of his midsummer hopes. And as the country 

 parson is not usually over-wealthy, there will be 

 the more encouragement for him to do the Rose 

 work with his own hands, and to summon the aid 

 of his single useful man only at actual show time, 

 for the carting of manure, or for pressure in 

 planting. 



He will thus become a real amateur, a true son of 

 Adam, and genuine brother of the back-ache, with 

 many thorns in his fingers and rough and hardened 

 hands ; but his Eoses will be truly his own, he will 

 have won them, and under the Creator will actually 

 have made them himself. And not only will they 

 seem to him brighter and purer and sweeter than 

 any other Eoses, but he will probably find in com- 

 parison and competition, that they are better than 

 those of his brother amateurs who do not personally 

 attend to their plants ; and it will be a great thought 

 for him that other far richer men may have grand 

 and glorious gardens, but that he in his humble 

 little plot with his own hands raises some of the 

 finest Eoses in England. 



Hote. — It is more than ever true, though perhaps 



