MANURES 



lOI 



stimulant, be administered at the beginning of June. 

 And if neighbours, who are not true lovers of the 

 Rose, expostulate, and condemn the waste, quote 

 for their edification those true words of Victor 

 Hugo, in ' Les Mis^rables,' ' the beautiful is as 

 useftd as the useful, perhaps more so' 



Nevertheless, I must warn the young Rosarian 

 that he may be too lavish in his application of 

 manures. The enthusiastic tyro has been known 

 to plant his Rose-trees in a composition, made 

 up half and half, of raw reeking manure and soil. 

 The results have been disastrous ; and when an 

 explanation of the debility outside has been sought 

 within the soil, it has been sadly seen that the 

 little tender rootlets have been sore let and hindered 

 by their rank unsavoury surroundings, and have made 

 but a feeble growth. 



Nor must the amateur keep the sunshine and 

 the rain from the soil by covering it continuously 

 with solid manures. One liberal application from 

 the farmyard, laid on late in November or early in 

 December (when the first frost makes a hard road 

 for the wheelbarrow), and dug in about the middle 

 of March, is ample, with the addition of some 

 fertilising liquid, when the buds expand for efflor- 

 escence, and some slight thin mulching in times 

 of excessive drought. 



