Spare the Knife There is, I suppose, little question that
the rose is the best of all flowering bushes ; but how seldom it is allowed to be a bush ! As a rule it is pruned in the spring so hard that the bush almost vanishes. Yet the loveliest things in the garden at this moment are a few unpruned roses. A fair number remember the lusty and thornless Zephyrine that will grow up and curl downwards into a most comely bush, smothered with flowers so sweet that you may smell them from a distance, though most roses are " fast of their smells," in the Baconian phrase. In one glorious garden, thrown open- recently for a day or two, all the Poulsen polyanthus roses are left unpruned. They -are six or seven feet instead of the usual two or three ; and are entirely -magnificent, perhaps the chief of the many beauties. It is not easy to feel sure that the owner is altogether
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