STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 141 



dinners have been associated with them. The bride wears them at 

 the marriage altar, and we place them reverently around our dead. 



Many of the historic countries have a national flower. In 

 Brazil and Peru the Passifloras have been their favorite flower; 

 Germany and Prussia have their Centaures Cyan thus; France had, 

 under the Bourbons, the Golden Lily; Scotland had its Thistle, Ire- 

 land its Shamrock, while England has that queen of flowers, the 

 Rose. 



Among the vast collection of floral gems we have culled a few, 

 ancient in story, whose beauty and fair fame has won the title to 

 royalty, and bore off the palm for charm of color, sweetness and 

 grace. 



Bocastre, a French traveler and writer, says but little was known 

 by the ancients of the rose and its cultivation; however, we believe 

 this beautiful flower was known by the early Egyptians, as several 

 varieties were cultivated by them at a later period. 



Queen Semiramis endeavored to immortalize her name, and cover 

 up the humbleness of her birth, by the greatness of her deeds, and to 

 this end undertook the building of Babylon, the ancient capital of 

 the Babylonian-Chaldean Empire, about 3,000 years ago. This city, 

 however, did not reach the summit of its magnificence until about 

 370 years before Christ, when Nebuchadnezzar, a subsequent reign- 

 ing king, lavished an almost endless amount of wealth upon it. 



Among some of the wonderful things recorded in Babylonian 

 history, as the work of this king, are the famous hanging gardens, 

 built in the last or new palace in the city. They were constructed 

 in a square 400 feet on every side, carried aloft, in terrace form, un- 

 til they reached the height of the walls of the city, which were 350 

 feet. 



The level of the terrace was prepared for the soil or mould deep 

 enough to grow trees, plants and flowers in profusion, among which 

 was the rose. These gardens were called one of the seven wonders 

 of the world, and were constructed by Nebuchadnezzar to please and 

 gratify his wife, Amytis, who retained her strong affection for the 

 hills and groves of her native Media. 



In the excavations at Ninevah in 1849, in Sennacherib's palace, 

 the walls were found to have been paneled with slabs of sculptured 

 alabaster, and on them were found sprays of the rose bush. 



From the earliest period the Greeks gave the rose the prefer- 

 ence, and in the Middle Ages it was extensively cultivated, and used 

 at ceremonies, festivals and fetes; and in the French and English 

 history, especially, has the rose figured more than any other flower; 

 and since the "war of the roses," during the reign of Henry VI, it 

 has been the distinctive badge of England. 



In this nineteenth century many intelligent florists are making 

 it a specialty, and are producing new and improved varieties, and this 

 plant has become an inhabitant of every civilized country, and opens 



