AUGUST. 227 
buy Mr. Rivers’ charming book, and Mr. Cranston’s truthful little 
brochure. Would I had bought them before I bought my experience! 
9. Selestion and digging up Briars to bud on.—Choose those that 
are young and yet firm in their spine or pith. Choose them of a good 
hard green in the rind; they are best when they have lost their 
prickles. In autumn or winter pay your servant something extra to 
take them up carefully with their small web roots on; and if he does 
his work well, praise him, and give him a good supper and some beer. 
ihe nearest way to the human heart (in England at least!) is down 
the throat! No man will scratch his face, tear his clothes, and dig up 
carefully Briars for a penny per stock. My noble ones, thus pro- 
cured, have just been budded by Mr. Gill, nurseryman, of Blandford, 
and tied by his lad, and I hope some day to be able to say, that Briar 
Roses do as well here as those on Manetti have just done. 
10. Position in the Garden.—A Rose that will do nothing in one 
situation, will do well in another, even in the same garden. Bourbons 
of a dark colour, here, usually do best near a north wall, where they 
get heat without being burned by the sun. In the sun they are apt to 
crack and fuse their colours. Reveil and Aurore de Guide, for instance, 
have done so this year. Leprestre, a noble Rose, blooms freely exposed 
to sun. G. Peabody, a fine purple crimson, has also opened freely. It 
is useless planting in windy situations slow growers or delicate Roses. 
Triomphe de Rennes, Noisette, will do well with protection in the open, 
but it will do twice as well against a wall. Paul Joseph, Proserpine, 
and Mons. Ravel, all bloom best under a north wall. And hardy, 
vigorous Acidalie will bring her blooms to greater perfection on a south 
wall. The Rev. Mr. Helyar told me, when here, that the south wall 
is the proper place for (H. P.) Napoleon. Eliza Sauvage, here, is 
blooming beautifully in the crux of a north-east wall in the yard, with 
an abutment to the west, but open to the south. These will serve for 
illustrations of right Roses in right places. A right Rose on a wrong 
stock, and in a wrong place, has produced much disappointment in many 
Roseries. 
11. A Briar fallacy.—I have heard people say that because a Briar 
grows finely in a poor hedge, where the soil is thin, and the substratum 
is dense chalk, that poverty and chalk are good for Roses on the Briar. 
I admit that where lands burn, chalk (where clay cannot be got) may 
be beneficial as a retainer of surface moisture, in the same way as 
popple stones (cobbles), grass, or mulching; but, it is not good as an 
under soil. At the back of my house, half way up a steep eastern 
chalk hill, the fields and hedges are mine, and from them I have dug 
up the finest Briars, some 10 feet high, and fit, at that height, to bud 
‘‘Fulgens,” as a weeper; but, on examining them, I found that, though 
they had some small web roots of their own, their main dependence was 
on a very large deep-rooted stool, to which they were attached by a strong 
cord. The strongest land produces, on the whole, the finest Briars, 
and suits ‘“‘generally” Roses on the Briar. Attached to such like 
stools I dug up from swamps last winter fine Briars. There is one other 
reason why Briars grow finely even in poor hedgerows, viz., their roots 
are protected by fallen leaves, which suggests mulching. I have found 
