AND HORTICULTURIST. 



157 



given that it was taken only for the sake of the 

 advertisements. The florist, as he expressed it, 

 "thought he knew his business without wasting 

 time reading papers." We were surprised to learn 

 recently that he had been lately a regular reader 

 of the articles on steam heating, and that his im- 

 mense houses will soon be warmed in that way. 

 This is just what the publisher likes to hear. He 

 offers no premiums — no extra inducements — for 

 people to subscribe for the magazine, but to get 

 out a work which every person who loves fruits or 

 flowers feels he cannot afford to be without. 



Objectionable Names for Fruits. — A corres- 

 pondent suggests that names like Big Bob, Little 

 Satan, Sweet Ducky, and Fiddle-stick, ought to be 

 frowned down by the public, and that if the varie- 

 ties so unfortunately burdened with ridiculous 

 names should happen to be worth the trouble — 

 which the very fact of their having such silly cog- 

 nomens is much against — the American Pomologi- 

 cal Society would be doing good service by ignor- 

 ing such vulgar names, and giving proper ones to 

 them. 



Caragana. — As before noted, the plant which 

 we can buy under this name in many nur- 

 series for twenty-five cents, we may also buy for 

 seventy-five cents, under the name of "Russian 

 Thornless Acacia," in others. The excuse for 

 adopting a few score of common names in the 

 place of one Latin one for a single plant, is gen- 

 erally that the botanical name is so long and so 

 hard ; but we see no advantage in this respect 

 in "Russian Thornless Acacia" over Caragana, 

 especially when it costs us an extra fifty cents to 

 learn it. 



Old -Fashioned Roses. — Those who are ap- 

 proaching the autumn of life, and wandering in 

 their earlier years among the ruins of old gardens, 

 or in those old gardens which it was the pride of 

 their owners to preserve, as in "the good old 

 times," must at least have a fascinating recollec- 

 tion of the old-fashioned roses, which grew and 

 grew from year to year, taking care of themselves 

 in a manner to excite the jealousy of the gardener's 

 art. Then in those days there were cinnamon 

 roses, apple roses, Scotch and French roses, Pro- 

 vence roses, musk roses, and roses of a hundred 

 leaves ; and damask roses, with their Maiden's 

 Blushes, York and Lancasters, and others not only 

 boiling over with beauty and fragrance, but clus- 

 tered about by legends and historical stories of 

 more or less truthfulness, which added very much 

 to the living pleasures which they gave. The 



writer well remembers one which had the flowers 

 white, but striped with red, which the old gardener 

 used to tell us came into existence about the time 

 when the two rival royal houses of York and Lan- 

 caster coalesced, after years of bloody warfare, of 

 which all school children have heard. To distin- 

 guish the adherents of each, one wore white roses 

 and the other red ones, and thus we had the fa- 

 mous "War of the Roses." But the roses, dear 

 things, did not fight. It was natural that in their 

 love of peace they should so rejoice at the end of 

 the cruel wars as to produce both colors mixed in 

 one flower, to show their sympathy with the gen- 

 eral delight at the peaceful turn of things which 

 the royal unions were to bring about. But the 

 English warriors were not alone to have the whole 

 glory of this striped rose to themselves. The 

 monkish legends claimed it in behalf of the good 

 Saint Francis of Assisi. In his twenty-fifth year 

 he determined to devote himself to a life of poverty 

 and religious utility. The great enemy of mankind, 

 with a foreknowledge of the inroads such a deter- 

 mined character as Francis must make on his 

 kingdom, determined to thwart this intention at all 

 hazards, and threw in his way all sorts of tempta- 

 tions likely to divert him from his chosen track. 



At length Satan, desperate, took the shape of a 

 beautiful woman and met him as he was walking 

 in a garden, hoping by her captivating charms to 

 make him repent that he had ever thought of taking 

 a vow to remain an unmarried man. But knovvii.g 

 that he who hesitates under these circumstances is 

 lost, he would not even look on the fair being who 

 stood right before him in the garden path, but 

 turned aside and plunged into a thicket to escape 

 her attentions. But the clump chanced to be of 

 strong plants of the damask rose. In his haste to 

 escape temptation the good young man took no 

 thought of the savage thorns. His flesh was torn 

 to pieces and his blood fell among the roots of the 

 roses. The plants had borne but white flowers 

 hitherto, but the following year blood streaks ap- 

 peared among them, and this was the origin of 

 the striped Damask rose. 



And so it was in those days. It is too bad that 

 cold prose has destroyed the poetry of these old- 

 time tales — it is worse that the good old flowers 

 themselves are gone. 



Mayor King, of Philadelphia — though a bach- 

 elor, is fond of flowers, and the windows of the 

 Mayor's office are gay with pot plants, in a much 

 more healthy condition of growth than window 

 flowers in a large city are apt to be. Among the 

 treasures is a fine healthy specimen of the coftee 



