226 



A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



without foliage (at one of our provincial shows it 

 was strictly prohibited, and I asked the committee 

 what they meant by coming on the ground with 

 whiskers) ; and sometimes they peeped out of leafy 

 bowers — ' plenty of covert, but very little game,' as a 

 witty Lincolnshire lord remarked to the clergyman, 

 who asked him, one Christmas morning, what he 

 thought of the decorations of a church in which the 

 evergreens were many and the worshippers were few. 



At our first National Rose-Show we commenced a 

 reform of these incongruities, and soon afterwards dis- 

 annulled them by an act of uniformity as to size and 

 shape. The amateur must therefore order his boxes, 

 which any carpenter can make for him from three- 

 quarter-inch deal, to be of the following dimensions: — 



Four inches high in front, and eighteen inches wide. 

 In length for 24 Roses, not less than 3 ft, nor more than 3 

 ft. 6 in. 



For 12 Roses, not less than i ft. 6 in., nor more than 2 ft. 

 For 6 Roses, not less than i ft., nor more than i ft. 6 in. 



LID 



I 1 ! 1 1 1 1 1 1 I ^ ' 'l^ ilCiSI 



