Angatt 12, 1876. ) 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



129 



VABIETIES OF PEEFUME IN THE ROSE. 



MONGST the whole world of floral produc- 

 tions surely there is no one flower so accept- 

 able to mankind as the Eose ; and this not 

 so much for beauty of form, colour, and the 

 exquisite infolding grace of its petals as for 

 its proverbial sweetness. For bringing the 

 subject of fragrance prominently before your 

 readers we are indebted to oiu- friend Mr. 

 Camm, and doubtless we shall be no less so 

 to our valuable Eose friend Mr. Hinton when 

 he has gathered up and classified all the Eose hints and 

 sweet varieties in the proposed election of sweet Eoses. 

 My object now in troubling your readers with my con- 

 tribution is that the proposed election may have some 

 kind of scientific classification that may be useful to us 

 in a future consideration of the subject. A sweet Eose 

 conveys to my mind an agreeable fact, but were that 

 sweetness to be described it would lend much more m- 

 terest and intelligence to the fact. Descriptive Eose 

 catalogues could then be made much more intelligently 

 descriptive on the one important subject of fragrance. 

 Our French neighbours are very lively and imaginative 

 in their varieties and descriptions of colouring. When our 

 olfactory senses are in good training W9 may discover 

 nearly as many shades of scents as there are shades of 

 colour in the Eose ; at any rate, a most interesting field 

 of study would be opened up by first classifying the types 

 of scent and then tracing out then- hybrid subdivisions. 

 In sweet-scented Eoses we must all take an interest, and 

 I am sure none more fo than our lady gardeners, whose 

 delicacy of discrimination in all matters of perfume will 

 be of the greatest assistance. 



The well-known perfnmes of flowers, such as Migno- 

 nette, Musk, Heliotrope, Verbena, Violet, Orange blossom, 

 and the hke, all elaborated from the same elements, are, 

 to my mind, very wonderful ; they, liowever, keep their 

 own peculiar scents all the world over; but the Eose, 

 queen of all, is unsurpassed in the variety of its perfume. 

 Having during many years given much attention to 

 this subject, I would endeavour to make a classification 

 of distinct types of Eose scents, asking your readers to 

 bear with mc in this first attempt at classification, yet feel- 

 ing sure to a highly-cultivated olfactory taste it is not over- 

 done, that the families of Tea and Hybrid Perpetual might 

 still further be subdivided in an interesting manner. 



I would here enumerate some seventeen varieties, 

 beginning with the well-known Sweet Briar : — 



1. Sweet Briar — The garden variety. 



2. Moss Mosebud — Common Moss and family. 



3. Austrian Briar — Copper Austrian and family. 



4. Musi; Hose — Narcissus, Old Musk, and family. 



5. Jlfyrr7i— Ayrshire Splendens. 



6. China liose — An astringent refreshing scent, old 

 Monthly China, and many others. 



7. Damask Perpetual — Eose du Roi, &c. 



8. Scotch Bose—The early Double Scotch. 



9. Violet— Vfhite Baaksia. 



No 750 —Vol. XXIX., New Series. 



10. Old Cabhagc — The well-known Double Provence. 



11. Otto Perpetual — Charles Lefebvre, Mme. Knorr, &c. 

 V2. True Perpetual — Cccile de Chabrillant, Pierre 



Netting, &o. 



13. Old Tea — The old yellow Tea or Magnolia Eose, 

 and others almost unpleasantly strong for some tastes. 



14. Sweet Tfrt— GoubauU, Mar.'cbal Niel, &o. 



1.5. Hybrid Tea — La France ; Bessie Johnson is closely 

 allied to this. 



16. Nectarine or Fruit-scetited — Socrates, Jaune Des- 

 prez, Aline Sisley, &c. 



17. The Vcrdicr — Eepresented more or less by all the 

 Victor Verdier hybrids, such as Eugrnie Verdier, Mar- 

 quise de Castellane, Comtesse d'Oxford, Mdlle. Marie 

 Finger, and very many others of n^cenfc introduction. 

 Some compare this slight but peculiar perfume to that 

 of Apples. I think it might be described as a delicate 

 Eose scent with a suspicion of turpentine about it not 

 unpleasantly blended. 



The petals of the highly-scented varieties have on their 

 inner surface minute perfume-glands or vesicles contain- 

 ing the highly volatile essence under the microscope dis- 

 tinctly visible ; those on the foliage of the Sweet Briar 

 almost to the naked eye ; so that with the aid of the 

 microscope and good olfactory practice the mteresting 

 question, Which are the sweetest Eoses? may be readily 

 settled. To my taste, and by the same rule, the follow- 

 ing are the most deliciously and powerfully scented : — 

 La France, Goubault, Devoniensis, Marechal Niel, Bessie 

 Johnson, Madame Knorr, Pierre Netting, and Charles 

 Lefebvre. As a rule, nearly all the dark Eoses are sweet- 

 scented. To unstop Nature's finest bottle of Eose, re- 

 move the cap in hot weather from a " pasted " full-blown 

 bud of La France, or even of the old Cabbage Eose, the 

 flower will instantly expand, throwing out a surprising 

 volume of fragrance. Eoses after they have been gathered 

 a short time appear to give off more perfume. Again, 

 Eoses blooming under glass usually give off more scent 

 than those of the same kind blooming in the open air. — 

 Henky Curtis, Torquay liosery. 



NOTES ON A FEW PEAES. 



I THINK I know the gentleman alluded to by Mr. Taylor 

 as a grower of Pears in Yorkshire. If I am right in 

 my conjecture his name begins with M, and that of his 

 village with G. Assuming this to be the fact, I ven- 

 ture to assert that that gentleman's garden is worth 

 going fifty miles to see as a pattern at once of neatness, 

 fruitfulness, and good management. There is not a foot 

 of wall wasted, and his trees bear to the very ground. 

 Before I went to see his garden I was conceited enough 

 to suppose that I knew something about the growth and 

 management of Pear trees, but a walk through his garden 

 in his company most effectually dissipated that notion, 

 and I came home with much humbler ideas of my own 

 management. 



But to return to Pears. First, of the Benrre de Capiau- 

 mont. It is given as a baking or stewing Pear in Eivers's 

 catalogue, and is sold in the Manchester market for a 



No. 14)2. -Vol. LIV., Old Sebies. 



