It pays to go to some trouble to secure cow-manure in any form. Some enthusiastic rosarians have started dairies for that very purpose. But the small rosarian will have to rely upon what he can buy, beg, or borrow, or steal. The family milkman, if he is a human farmer and not merely a minion of a soulless corporation, may sometimes be prevailed upon for a bushel or two of the real stuff; and a scouting trip in the family flivver by day, and a raid by night upon sundry fields, may provide much precious loot. The need for cow-manure transcends ethics, and such predatory adventures may prove more thrilling than mere aimless drives along hot dusty roads, or vernal assaults upon innocent unoffending wild flowers.
Wow. Predatory adventures? Those rosarians in the 30's were some serious mofos about their soil. Also "flivver" is "a cheap car or aircraft, esp. one in bad condition" but you knew that. Who would fly around in a flivver aircraft, that sounds crazy.
The authors were both presidents of the American Rose Society, and this book was actually an 18th edition, which means the first one must been written in the 1800's. The book includes very nice color illustrations and black & white photographs of famous rosarians, it was a fancy book, which why someone is selling it Etsy.