SOILS 77 



though the rain had washed into it all the goodness 

 of the upper ground. The lean and the fat, the 

 froth and the preserves, were soon mixed for me by 

 the spade aforesaid ; and in this soil, trenched and 

 exposed to the air for a few weeks afterwards, I 

 planted my Briers. Then followed the manure, of 

 which I have yet to speak, and in due course the 

 Roses. These in their first summer, 1865 (I do not 

 chronicle my success from egotism, but as facts for 

 the encouragement of others), won the two first prizes 

 at Birmingham, and two seconds at the Crystal 

 Palace, with very little assistance from their allies 

 over the water ; and in 1 868, from ^ maiden ' stocks 

 — from Briers budded in 1867 — I won fourteen 

 first prizes out of sixteen collections shown, includ- 

 ing that which was then considered the champion 

 prize of all, the first awarded to amateurs at the 

 Grand National Show of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society. 



In this case, as with the heavy clay, the remedy 

 lay close to the disease ; and in very many similar 

 cases it will be found that, by intermixing the 

 stronger and more tenacious subsoil with the surface, 

 fertility may be secured. If not in actual proximity, 

 the element required for a defective soil — clay, for 

 example, when sand predominates — may be procured 

 generally at no great distance, and may be fetched 



