118 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The faces of our Savannah roses were like camelias in perfection, and 

 though without fragrance, every bud fulflled its promise of cream-white 

 or rose-pink or variegated petals, in a way that brought delight to all 

 who saw or plucked them. But I had not yet learned the science of graft- 

 ing on the manetti, and though this lot of roses grew well for two or three 

 years It gradually came about, in the hurry of our too short season, with 

 too many things to do at once, that the wild rose from the root- was suf- 

 fered to outgrow the graft for want of frequent pruning, until, lol I was 

 astonished one summer day with a forest of bushes and an utter rout of 

 the blossoms which had so charmed me. 



Thus, when ignorance and neglect are harnessed together in the care of 

 the rose garden, it is not difficult to opine where and how the mischief 

 may end. 



But wisdom, not unfrequently, is born of disaster, and, happy to relate, 

 from the huge heart-shaped mound where those southern beauties out- 

 grew their normal stature, there now flourishes promising thrifty plants 

 of hybrid perpetuals and hybrid teas, while just across the garden path 

 from a large star shaped bank the ever faithful General Jacqueminot 

 nods and reddens and glorifies its abiding place. 



In the multiplicity of crosses made between difi'erent groups of roses 

 and the variety and classes thereby engendered, my favorite of the garden 

 has always been the crested moss rose, with its exquisite buds, embroid- 

 ered with curly green without, and the sweet fragrant heart of perfect 

 rose petals within. Though they require the highest culture and richest 

 soil, they are suggestive of a refinement in form and color, which betok- 

 ens the thoroughbred. Every bud fulfills its promise of the full wide-open 

 fiower and this reminds me of the deplorable fashion which obtains of 

 late, of florists cutting the roses for market before the bud has any hope 

 of arriving at the flower. In the rose fetes given at Villa Rosa these two 

 last years, I have experienced the greatest difficulty in procuring real 

 roses in abundance, rather than the starved, pinched, immature buds? 

 which never from the first were expected to show their eyes or even lift 

 up their faces. Let us have some old-time roses, my friends. There is 

 much in the prophecy of a bud, but there is a vast deal more in the splen- 

 dor of the full bloom. 



Though every rose garden of fair dimensions is improved by the instal 

 lation of a good professional gardener, and I owe much to our own excel- 

 lent German head gardener who has been with us these many years, 

 it cannot be too strongly urged that every lady of this fair city, and other 

 cities, having space, leisure and means, make floriculture something of a 

 study, until the month of June in Minneapolis should develop into a very 

 carnival of roses. 



While Boston excels in the exhibit of hybrid or remontant blooms;while 

 New York is the first in the showing of fine hybrid teas, and New Jersey 

 brings her roses under glass to the greatest perfection, it remains for Min- 

 nesota, — does it not?— to ask herself the question, what place she is con- 

 tent to occupy in the horticultural scale, representing the combined 

 forty-four of our great United States. 



Have we yet a horticultural hall with library and offices attached, as a 

 magnet to draw together from different portions of the state all those 

 engaged in this interesting pursuit? While in Boston last week, I was 



