The Book of the Rose

Abstract

THE design of the author is “to show how roses may be A grown in the best possible manner so as to produce the finest blooms “; and from his enthusiastic love and his long, successful culture of the flower, he has written such an exhaustive treatise that the reader who has the ambition, the energy and the means to follow his instructions cannot fail to achieve success. He gives clear and comprehensive details as to soil, situation, selection and treatment, where to erect a throne for the queen of flowers, and the homage which must be paid by those devoted subjects who would win her most gracious smiles. With a loyal service, which is never disheartened, the knight of the rose must be eager to maintain her supremacy against all comers. Without metaphor, he who would grow roses in their perfect beauty, and, like the author of this book, would be rewarded with medals and trophies, must obey the immutable law, must work for his wage, must train for the race if he would so run that he may obtain the prize; he must dig and drain and enrich the soil, must plant, protect and prune, and, like the husbandman, he must have long patience before the harvest comes. He must be prepared for failures and disappointments, for nipping frosts and scorching suns, hailstones and drenching rains, for blight and mildew, fungus and thrip, for aphis and grubs, spiders and beetles, suckers and weeds. The obstacles are many, and the enemies are fierce, as ever to those who would attain excellence.

The Book of the Rose.

By the Rev. A. Foster-Melliar. Second edition, with 33 illustrations. Pp. xiv + 352. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1902.) Price 6s.