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HORTICULTURE 



March 17, 1906 



THE ROSE. 



(A paper read before the Pittsburg and 



Allegheny Florists' and Gardeners' 



Club by Neil McCallum.) 



The rose has been immortalized by 

 the most ancient authors. Homer's 

 allusion to the rose in the Iliad and 

 Odyssey are among the earliest men- 

 tions we have. Mr. Paul, in his Rose 

 Garden, gives a translation from the 

 Greek Poetess Sappho, who lived 600 

 B. C. It is: 



"Would Joye appoint some flower to reign 

 In matchless beauty on the plain, 

 The Rose (mankind will all agree), 

 The Rose the queen of flowers should be." 



Historians tell us that those luxu- 

 rious persons, Cleopatra and Nero, 

 spent immense sums of money for 

 roses and rose petals to strew on the 

 floors and seats of their banquet balls. 

 Pliny, also, tells us that it is neces- 

 sary to move the earth to a depth of 

 two feet in their cultivation. Coming 

 down to modern times. Dr. Lindley 

 says the Pharmacopean could be 

 formed of the rose family alone; and 

 Sir R. Christison tells that it takes 

 100,000 roses, the produce of 10,000 

 bushes of the Damask rose, to yield 

 ISO grains of attar of roses. The 

 Damask rose is parent of the hybrid 

 red roses of today; it was brought to 

 Europe from Syria by one of the Cru- 

 saders returning from the. Holy Wars. 



Roses will do fairly well in almost 

 any soil, providing it is not a wet or 

 a loose, sandy one; of course, the ideal 

 soil is a deep, strong loam and a shelt- 

 ered position with an exposure to the 

 morning sun, shaded from the fierce 

 rays of the noonday sun. A stiff clay 

 land can be helped by draining and 

 working in long stable manure, de- 

 cayed leaves, sand and ashes and a 

 sandy or gravelly earth by the addi- 

 tion of cow manure, clay or stiff loam, 

 but any ground which will grow good 

 cabbage will also grow good roses. 



The best season for planting the 

 hardier roses is the late fall, but the 

 more tender teas should be left until 

 early spring. It often happens when 

 you unpack your roses from a distant 

 nursery that you discover the bark 

 all shrivelled; it is a good plan to 

 bury them completely at least six 

 inches below the surface, give the 

 ground a good soaking and leave so 

 for a couple or three days to plump 

 up again. In planting budded, or 

 grafted plants, the point of union 

 should be at least two inches below 

 the surface, so that they may event- 

 ually become own root plants. In 

 pruning, first cut out all decayed, 

 crowded or weak growths, then short- 

 en back as required, observing the 

 rule that delicate and weak growers 

 should be pruned severely, and strong 

 and vigorous growers pruned very 

 lightly. The rose chafer is a trou- 



WELLESLEY. 



blesome pest when he comes, as hand 

 picking and destroying by coal oil, 

 fire, or crushing is the only remedy 

 for him; for other insects a solution 

 of whale oil soap applied with a 

 syringe will prove effectual in ridding 

 the plants. 



There are many ways in which 

 roses can be used to produce decora- 

 tive effects outdoors, as dwarf plants 

 in beds, as climbers on walls, porches 

 or arches, as pillars, in large isolated 

 clumps, as a hedge or dividing line, 

 as an edging to other shrubs, or to 

 carpet banks and slopes. 



Take, first, roses as dwarf plants in 

 beds, such varieties as: — Hermosa, 

 Marie Van Houtte, Madame Lambert, 

 La France. Homer, Malmaison, Perle 

 des Jardins. and the old Agrippina are 

 better than the stronger H. P.'s, which 

 are good as masses, such sorts as 

 Baroness Rothschild, Mabel Morrison, 

 Merville de Lyon, Rev. J. B. Cram. 

 Louis Van Houtte, Mdme. Gabriel 

 Luizet, Alfred Colomb, Marshall P. 

 Wilder, Marie Baumann, Margaret 

 Dickson, Gloire de Margottin, Fran- 



cois Michelon, Fisher Holmes and 

 Mrs. John Laing being glorious dur- 

 ing their flowering season. 



The Rugosa hybrids are grand and 

 useful roses for hedges or screens, 

 lovely in foliage, flowers and fruit, 

 and hard as nails in constitution. The 

 Wichuraiana and its hybrids are 

 splendid as edgings and to cover banks 

 or ugly places. The Rambler vari- 

 eties, with Prairie roses and climbing 

 Hybrid Remontants and Teas, like 

 Rene Marie Henriette, Gloire de Dijon, 

 W. Allen Richardson, Jules Margottin, 

 Glory of Cheshunt, Victor Verdier, 

 Bessie Johnson are magnificent as 

 pillar roses, on arches, walls, or 

 porches. Dean Hole says we should 

 have in our gardens, "Beds of roses, 

 bowers of roses, hedges of roses, pil- 

 lars of roses, arches of roses, foun- 

 tains of roses, basket of roses, vistas 

 and alleys of the rose." 



OUR COLORED PLATES. 



We have a few extra copies of the 

 colored plates sent out with recent is- 

 sues of HORTICULTURE, any of 

 which will be sent in tubes, post paid, 

 to applicants at ten cents each. 



