t--fewer things would be
omitted from my garden if it were larger and in the heart of the
country, and if I had somebody to help me, and if by chance I happened
to know something about it.

CHAPTER III

ROSES: AND THE STORY OF "THE BLESSED ARTIST"

The terminology of the botanist is a standard joke, but as a matter of
fact, the botanist blunders into a good thing sometimes. It was rather a
fine idea to have in plants an order of those that bear the
cross--cruciferae. The turnip and sea-kale are among those whose petals
make the sign, but it need not shock us. Is there not loveliness in the
flower of the potato, and poetry in the foliage of the asparagus? On the
whole, I think the botanist makes me less angry than the horticulturist.

Why, for instance, are so many roses named after abominable
horticulturists or their wearisome female relatives? How can you call a
rose Frau Karl Druschki? I always call that great white rose Mabel,
because it reminds me of a large, lymphatic, handsome girl, who was
entirely without charm. Scent in a flower is charm in a woman. Frau Karl
Druschki has no scent. Hugh Dickson has nothing wrong with it but its
name. Fancy calling a beautiful apricot-tinted rose William Allen
Richardson! Its godfathers and godmothers in its baptism showed a small
sense of humour. Besides, its name is quite obviously Doris. It is
permissible to call a pink rambler Dorothy, but why add the unspeakable
surname Perkins? Why should a red rose be named after a duke? It is
insufferable, snobbish, and inept. No rose should be named after any
man, and should never bear more than the first name of a woman. Niphetos
is a possible name; it is the most sentimental of the white roses. But
almost all roses have their counterparts in women. There is, for
instance, in my garden a pink, useful, knobbly dumpling of a rose. I
have not the faintest idea what the horticulturist would call it, but no
one can see it without knowing that its real name is Kate.

I think the roses that I love best are those of the deepest and darkest
crimson. They have velvety skins and the most perfect fragrance. It is
part of the perversity of the thing that they should be so difficult to
manage. You feed them and tend them, and they give you scanty and
imperfect bloom, or they die, and the intelligent inquest results in an
open verdict. When that happens, the only consolation is to find
somebody else who has had the same trouble with the