472 



JOtJRNAlj OP HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



t Jace 13, 1976. 



those gay flowers Beem to be omitted from many gardeus, but 

 we would not have them entirely overlooked or forgotten. 



Plants may be raised from seed, which can be had from most 

 of our principal seedsmen. The seed should be sown in gentle 

 heat in spring in sandy soil in well-drained pots, subsequently 

 potting-off the seedlings, gradually hardening them off and 

 planting them out at the end of May in beds or borders, and 

 they will well repay the labour they have had bestowed upon 

 them. I cannot conceive why they are so seldom seen. Some 

 say they are hardy, but it is much the safest to put in cuttings 

 in the autumn and keep them from the frost in a cool dry 

 house under glass. They should be carefully watered, as they 

 are liable to suffer from damp. They are useful for indoor 

 decoration, as well as for beds and borders. They are liable 

 to suffer from winds in exposed situations ; this should be 

 guarded against by pegging-down or tying-up. 



G. aristata is one of the hardiest of the race ; it is of dwarf 

 habit, bearing orange-oolonred flowers, and does well in most 

 ordinary garden soil. G. Eichardsonii is of taller habit, and 

 requires staking to keep it from being broken by the wind. 

 G. Loiseli is a tall-growing kind, these mostly endure through 

 our ordinary winters. G. grandiflora is one of the gayest 

 of the race, and I cannot understand why a plant so beauti- 

 ful is so seldom met with ; as a border plant, it is one of the 

 most effective, and continue sa long time in bloom. G. bicolor 

 is a very desirable plant from North America, and there are 

 other kinds equally worthy of culture. — Veritas. 



BOSES IN FRANCE. 



EosEs have always held a considerable place in the lives of 

 Frenchwomen. Among the old customs of Auvergne was one 

 which decided that a wreath of Eoees should form the whole 

 marriage portion of the daughters of noble families where 

 there were heirs male to the lands and property belonging to 

 them. In some parts of Normandy also a legal fiction existed, 

 till very recently, by which a girl who had received a chaplet 

 of Eoses on her wedding-day had no further claim to the in- 

 heritance of her parents, though she might afterwards receive 

 goods which were formerly bequeathed to her. At Lucy, near 

 Anxerre, twelve boys selected by the Mayor were bound to 

 accompany every bride to church, and they carried a cross 

 made of Eoses, for which service the bridegroom gratified 

 them with seven sous and six centimes in money newly coined. 

 A list of the ancient feudal rights of the Counts of Toulouse 

 mentioned " bushels of Eoses," which were to be paid to them 

 in order that their wives might be supplied with rose water. 

 A fief at Gournay on the Marne was held by the presentation 

 of four Eoses to the lady of the manor, or to the lord's eldest 

 daughter, upon All Saints' day. If the lord was absent or 

 unmarried these flowers were to be offered to the Virgin. 



The Rose was first made the prize of moral conduct at a 

 festival held in the latter part of the fifth century. It appears 

 that St. Medard, Bishop of Noyon, was also lord of the 

 neighbouring manor of Salency, and having wisely taken it 

 into his head that virtue should not be its own sole reward, 

 that prelate determined to recompense the most discreet young 

 women he could find with a solid gift of twenty-five pounds 

 and a chaplet of Roses. To be sure the twenty-five pounds 

 were pounds of Touraine, valued at tenpence each, but they 

 must have been well worth having in the year of grace 475. 

 St. Medard perpetuated his gilt by assigning a email parcel 

 of his land to trustees for ever, on condition that the rent of 

 it should be applied every year to provide for the accessories 

 and expenses of what he described as " the Ceremony of the 

 Rose." A blue ribbon was added to the chaplet of Eoses by 

 order of Louis XIII., who was graciously pleased to have a 

 Eosiere crowned in his name at the request of M. de Belloy, 

 then Lord of Salency. " Go," said this monarch dryly to the 

 Marquis de Cordes, a captain of His Majesty's life guard, who 

 represented him on that occasion, " and offer this to the Eosidre. 

 It has been long enough the sign of favour, let it serve for 

 once as a guerdon to worth." 



The ceremony of the Rose was kept up in this not ungrace- 

 ful manner at St. Medard's feast for twelve centuries, when in 

 1774 a suit at law about the Rosiere of Salency came before 

 the parliament of Paris. The lord of the manor at that period 

 seems to have been a surly grasping bumpkin, who wanted to 

 destroy the pretty custom which had almost hallowed his 

 estate and had conferred upon it a singular historical interest. 

 This noble lout churlishly insisted on choosing his own Eosiere, 

 without reference to the inhabitants of Salency, and he claimed 



the privilege of putting the crown on her head without any 

 pomp or ceremony. He pleaded, too, with excessive bad taste 

 and niggardliness, that the cost of the festival, though not 

 large, could be reduced by at least half. These ridiculous pre- 

 tensions were condemned as unsustainable in law by the Royal 

 Bailliage of Chauny, acting on the opinions of the legal advisers 

 of the crown ; and in a formal sentence, pronounced on the 

 19th of May, 1775, the rules for the nomination of the Rosifere 

 of Salency, and for the order of march to be observed at the 

 ceremony of her coronation, were judicially fixed. The lord of 

 the manor, as obstinate as he was mean, appealed against this 

 decision, but it was confirmed by a solemn judgment delivered 

 on the '20th of December in the following year, and the lord of 

 the manor was ordered to pay all the costs of the suit. 



The peasantry of Salency, proud of their triumph, established 

 a nobility of the Rose, and the family which could number 

 most Eosicres since the time of St. Jli'-dard was held the most 

 illustrious member of it. 



After the prominency given to the Eosirres of Salency many 

 other places were supplied with funds for a Eose feast by 

 whimsical donors or testators. Most of the villages within 

 hail of Paris have their Eosi^res. Belgium has iuitiated the 

 pleasant usage of France, and during the sojourn of Louis 

 XVIII. at Blankenberg he was requested to place the crown of 

 innocence on the head of the local Eosifre, who had much simple 

 politeness in her nature ; so, looking up at the august face of 

 His Majesty, she curtsied and said, " Dimi toils !a rendc," a. 

 mode of thanksgiving which made the audience smile, because 

 Louis-le-Desire had no direct descendants ; indeed, Heaven did 

 return some Roses to the king, for these flowers were the signs 

 of homage which peers of France had from time immemorial 

 offered to their sovereign, and many of the old families were 

 for reviving the practice after Waterloo had opened the way to 

 courtly high jinks again. The Eose homage caused a dispute 

 for precedence between the Dukes of Montpensier and Nevers, 

 which was only terminated by a parlinmentary decision in 

 favour of Montpensier as a duke of the blood royal. 



On May-day in Provence a young girl crowned with Eoses is 

 seated at each end of the principal streets and thoroughfares of 

 some towns. She is called "La Belle de Mai," and her com- 

 panions levy contributions on the passers-by for her wedding 

 portion, much as the Etonians begged for "salt'' in the old 

 " Montem " days. When a beautiful Princess Galitzin be- 

 sought the blessing of Archbishop Hoton, the prelate silently 

 took a Eose from the shrine of our Lady of Grace and presented 

 it to her. The Emperor Charles-Qniot gave a Eose as the do- 

 vice of his wife Isabella of Portugal. Luther had a Eose en- 

 graven on his private signet ring. At Proving the gardeners 

 choose a king every year, and he is called " Eoi des Eosiers," 

 or monarch of the Eose trees. He is enthroned on St. Fiacre's 

 day at vespers, just as the choristers who sing service in the 

 saint's chapel chant the words, " Deposuit polentei df scdc, et 

 exaltavit humilcs." — (Daily News.) 



NEW BOOK. 



Till' Fern Paradisn : a Pica (or the Culture uf Ferns. By 

 Francis George Heath. London : Hodder A Stoughton. 

 " The earnest purpose of this little volume is that it may 

 assist in developing the popular taste for Ferns in such a way as 

 to lead to the more extensive cultivation of these graceful and 

 beautiful plants in our gardens and in onr dwelling-houses— nay, 

 even so far as such an arrangement would be practicable, in our 

 places of business wherever they may be." 



We applaud that purpose, for its result where effected is an 

 increase of pleasure and a promotion of health whether in the 

 garden structure of the wealthy or the window-sill of the poor. 

 The author is enthusiastic, and , being capable as well, he writes 

 efficiently, and no one can peruse his pages without resolving 

 when opportunity offers to begin Fern culture or to increase 

 his Fern stock. Ferns are plants for everyone and every- 

 where. No city alley is so dark or stifling as that Ferns will 

 not grow in it. We know a window-sill in such an alley on 

 which are growing in well-cared-for luxuriance Scolopendrium, 

 Blechnum, Adiantum, Trichomanes, Polj'podium, and Lastrea. 

 As a specimen of the volume's contents we will extract its 

 notes on one of those species. 



"The Maipenhair (Adiantum Capillns-Veneris). — This beau- 

 tiful Fern is one of the rarest of our native species. It is found 

 in Devonshire and Cornwall, in some parts of South Wales, and 

 in Ireland — in Ireland, in fact, more abundantly than in any 

 othtr part of the United Kingdom. But it is more than pos- 



