SELECTION 145 



criticism, knowledge of habit, and experience in 

 pruning, will be indispensable. Melancholy results 

 must inevitably ensue from ignorance or inatten- 

 tion; and I have shuddered to see examples of 

 both in long lanky trees, without any lateral 

 shoots, flowerless and leafless for three-fourths of 

 their height, reminding one of those shorn disgusting 

 poodles, profanely termed by their proprietors 

 ' lions,' as they stand upon their execrable hind 

 legs to beg. But not upon them — not upon the 

 helpless object — but on the barbarous owner, we 

 must expend our noble rage; upon those who have 

 brought innocent loveliness to the whipping-post, 

 or rather the pillory, and compelled her to look 

 the words which St. Simeon Stylites moaned — 



' Patient on this tall pillar I have borne 

 Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow.' 



The best plan of growing these Roses, which a 



long experience has taught me, is this : To prepare 



and enrich your soil as I have advised in Chapters 



VI. and VII., and then to fix firmly therein the 



pillar which is to support the trees. Of what 



material is this pillar to be.^ — wood or iron? The 



former commends itself to the eye (and the pocket) 



at once ; and I well remember the satisfaction with 



which I surveyed an early experiment with larch 



K 



