In presenting our recipe be assured that I realize that there are as 
many ways of producing good roses as there are ways of making good 
cake, and that ours is only one. Put away all thoughts of the loveliness 
of the rose, for this is a discourse on technique, if I may transplant the 
word, and follow me while we plough through earth, the moist black 
earth that roses love so well. 
The situation of the garden, the composition of the soil, the prun- 
ing, the spraying and the method of cutting the blooms, are to my 
mind the five component elements that make or mar success in rose 
growing. 
Our roses are grown on three different terraces looking to the north, 
with grass slopes as backgrounds, the borders backing against the 
slopes. These borders are four feet wide and were excavated to the 
depth of two feet. No artificial drainage was necessary as two feet 
brought us to gravel. 
The composition of the soil is six inches of sod, grass side down, 
which we leave unforked, eight inches of well rotted cow manure, over 
which we threw half an inch of humus and about Yi6 of an inch of bone 
meal and x /i6 of an inch of lime. To this we added six inches of heavy 
yellow loam as a substitute for clay and last six inches of top soil. 
This was forked very, very thoroughly, leaving the bottom sod un- 
touched. We prepared our beds in the Autumn and let them settle 
until Spring with the prospect of their settling an inch or so below the 
grass path and thereby better retaining the moisture. 
We planted this garden of some twenty-two hundred plants im- 
ported from France and five hundred four year plants selected from 
the old garden in the Spring. The imported roses were received in 
March, 1914. The box was unpacked, the moss removed and the 
plants buried almost up to their tops in trenches in ttu field until the 
weather was suitable for planting. 
We plant our roses twelve inches apart, all advice to the contrary. 
They are planted in three rows one directly behind the other so 
that in between are little vaulted avenues of foliage underneath 
which all the working of the soil is done. We work our soil so 
constantly that no annuals could keep rooted even if we choose to 
plant them. In our judgment ground cover and box hedge are a 
mistake. They take too much nourishment from the roses. Even 
when the foliage is most luxuriant black earth shows in eighteen 
inch planting. We think we have no more mildew from our close 
planting than is the lot of most rose growers and we pay the 
penalty of overworking the soil by constantly enriching it. We 
transplanted some strong growers, General McArthur, this Spring 
