70 



THE BOOK OF THE ROSE 



CHAP. 



often it is probably not worth the trouble when it can 

 be dug in quickly for vegetable crops, and other good 

 manure is procurable. Mr. William Paul, in his large 

 work, The Rose Garden, describes a mode of using 

 it which involves mixing with earth, burying for six 

 months, and afterwards mixing and turning over once 

 or twice more. This seems to require a good deal of 

 labour, but then it must be noticed that he considers 

 it the best of all manures for Roses on light soils, and 

 that it has a very marked effect on the growth I can 

 testify from an instance in my own garden. During 

 the winter a quantity of night-soil was deeply buried 

 near to a sweet-briar, into which I had put a bud of 

 Marechal Niel ; and one of the shoots from that bud, 

 being laid along a wall, reached in the course of the 

 summer a length of 27 feet. 



Manure from the fowl-house or dove-cote is good, 

 but transitory : it should be kept from rain, and not 

 put on in the winter. 



The old custom of burying the carcasses of dead 

 animals in vine borders is now discredited, and I 

 should not recommend it for Roses. Bones, though 

 most useful for the phosphates they contain, do not 

 supply all the necessary constituents, and had better 

 be left to the manufacturers of artificial manures. 



2. Liquid Manure. — I have hinted at the advant- 

 ages which I conceive to belong to manure in a liquid 

 state. (1.) In the first place, it is plain that the roots 

 of a Rose cannot take up anything except fluids : con- 

 sequently, only those parts of solid manure which are 

 soluble can be of any use as food, and therefore liquid 

 manure can supply everything that solids can. (2.) 

 Secondly, the problem is by this means solved of how 

 to get fresh food to the roots without disturbing them 



