126 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



church I must duck to preserve my eyesight/^ The 

 two trees alluded to are on their own roots, but the 

 Rose thrives stoutly on the Brier and the Manetti, 

 budded and grafted, wherever Roses grow. Its 

 flowers are the earliest and latest ; it has symmetry, 

 size, endurance, colour (five tints are given to it 

 in the Rose catalogues — buff, yellow, orange, fawn, 

 salmon, and it has them all), and perfume. It is 

 what cricketers call an 'all-rounder,' good in every 

 point for wall, arcade, pillar, standard, dwarf, en 

 masse^ or as a single tree. It is easy to cultivate out 

 of doors and in. It forces admirably, and you may 

 have it, almost in its summer beauty, when Christmas 

 snows are on the ground. With half-a-dozen pots of 

 it carefully treated, and half-a-dozen trees in your 

 garden, you may enjoy it all the year round ; and if 

 ever, for some heinous crime, I were miserably 

 sentenced, for the rest of my life, to possess but a 

 single Rose-tree, I should desire to be supplied, on 

 leaving the dock, with a strong plant of Gloire de 

 Dijon. 



1 This tree passed through a severe ordeal, during the restora- 

 tion of my church. As it was necessary to rebuild the greater part 

 of the wall on which it grew, I dared not hope its preservation; 

 but the architect, Mr. Christian, was an admirer of Roses, and the 

 clerk of the works, Mr. Dick, was an admirer of Roses, and under 

 their auspices the dear old favourite was carefully removed from the 

 stonework, protected by a temporary wooden case, and finally replaced 

 in safety. 



