SELECTION 127 



As to treatment, although this Rose, like some 

 thoroughbred horse, will do its work with little 

 grooming and scanty fare, it well repays that 

 generous diet which I have previously prescribed. 

 In pruning, take away all weakly wood, and you 

 may then deal with the strong as you please. If 

 you want to increase the height of your tree, *cut 

 boldly,' as said the Augur, and low. If you desire 

 short flowering laterals, you may have them, a 

 dozen on a shoot, or from as many * eyes ' as you 

 like to leave on it. 



There are two Roses, I am well aware — two 

 sisters of this same ^ most divinely tall ' family — 

 more beautiful, if you compare the individual flowers, 

 than that which I have preferred before them. When 

 we held our third National Rose Show in the Crystal 

 Palace at Sydenham — the first of those exhibitions 

 which have since been so popular in that grand 

 creation of a gardener's genius — I remember that 

 some of us were made almost angry by the excessive 

 share of admiration received by one of these Roses. 

 An anxious eager crowd jumped and jostled to get 

 a view of it, reckless of each other's corns. I heard 

 a remark from one visitor to another, a short man 

 behind him, who seemed, I must say, about to 

 clamber up the speaker's back,— Pardon me, sir, 

 but may I remind you that we are not playing 



