62 



A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



Of this, and before I speak upon Soil^ let me 

 submit an illustration. 



Not many summers since, three individuals, of 

 whom I was one, were conversing in a country home. 

 One of my companions was about to succeed the 

 other as tenant of the house in which we were met, 

 and was making anxious inquiry about the garden 

 in general, and concerning Roses in particular. 

 ^ Oh ! ' said our host, * the place is much too 

 exposed for Roses. No man in the world is fonder 

 of them than I am, and I have tried all means, and 

 spared no expense ; but it is simply hopeless.' 

 ^ Must have Roses' was the quiet commentary of 

 the newcomer ; and two years afterwards I met 

 him at the local flower-show, the winner of a first 

 prize for twelve. * My predecessor,' he said, ^ was 

 no more the enthusiast which he professed to be 

 about Roses, than that Quaker was an enthusiastic 

 almsgiver who had felt so much for his afflicted 

 friend but had not felt in his pocket. The pleasure- 

 grounds, it is true, are too bleak for prize blooms, but 

 in the large, half-cultivated kitchen-garden, I found 

 the most delightful corner, with an eastern aspect ; 

 put in one hundred Briers; budded them last summer; 

 manured them abundantly this ; and am now, between 

 ourselves, and sub rosd^ in such a bumptious con- 

 dition, that you'd think I'd m^ade the Roses myself/ 



