XXI 



HOW TO HAVE SUCCESS WITH ROSES 



Rose-growing has come to have much the same aspect as 

 wedlock — a thing not to be entered into hghtly, but soberly 

 and most advisedly. If a beginning gardener proposes to set 

 out roses the counsel given is usually: "Don't." When a bold- 

 spirited gardener disregards this advice and sets about making 

 a rose-garden he quickly reaches a state of dazed and helpless 

 bewilderment. First, at the multitude of roses that throng the 

 catalogues, each one as desirable, apparently, as its fellow; next 

 he finds himself in a maze of disconcerting classifications, lost in 

 a labyrinth of Bourbons, Noisettes, Polyanthas, Teas, Hybrid 

 Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals (the T., H. T., H. P. of the catalogues) ; 

 added to this is the lengthy and sobering Ust of possible diseases, 

 the portentous array of insect enemies, which things make of 

 rose-growing a most hazardous undertaking. Yet oxa grand- 

 mothers grew roses — ^probably not prize roses, but still abun- 

 dant and lovely, and they had them in their gardens as a 

 matter of course. 



Now, rose-growing is not a thing of extraordinary difficulty. 

 Of course, if one expects to take prizes at exhibitions then 

 rose-growing is an art; but if he simply wants roses enough 

 to delight his eyes and perfume his garden, that is a thing 

 from which no array of bristling difficulties should stop him. 

 Sometimes obstacles which look like lions in the way can be 

 "shooed" aside as easily as if they were hens. 



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