A bundle
of rose-trees or shrubs will bear a good deal on their leaves and
branches, but for every moment you leave their roots exposed to drying
and chilling blasts they suffer. When a plant is out of the ground,
protect its crown and its roots at once. If a plant is moved quickly,
it is advantageous, of course, to take it up with as much earth as
possible, if the roots remain undisturbed in their little plat.
Otherwise, earth is no better than any other protection; and in
sending plants by post, &c. (when soil weighs very heavily), it is
better to wash every bit of soil out of the roots, and then thoroughly
wrap them in moss, and outside that in hay or tow, or cotton-wool.
Then, if the roots are comfortably spread in nice mould at the other
end of the journey, all should go well.
I reserve a sneaking credulity about "lucky fingers." Or rather, I
should say, a belief that some people have a strange power (or tact)
in dealing with the vegetable world, as others have in controlling and
coaxing animals.
It is a vivid memory of my childhood that (amongst the box-edged
gardens of a family of eight), that of my eldest brother was almost
inconvenienced by the luck of his fingers. "Survival of the fittest"
(if hardiest does mean fittest!) kept the others within bounds; but
what he begged, borrowed, and stole, survived, all of it, conglomerate
around the "double velvet" rose, which formed the centre-piece.
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