216 ANNUAL REPORT. 



the number of their bushes for themselves or for the purpose of 

 donating to friends. The process is easy and simple. Choose one 

 of the new shoots of the bush starting out near the ground, dig a 

 small trench in the ground and bend the shoot down into it, being 

 careful not to separate it from the parent bush, cut into the shoot 

 from the under side about three-fourths of an inch below each 

 joint up to the center of the joint, being careful not to cut it en- 

 tirely off. Fasten the shoot firmly into the trench with hooked 

 sticks and cover with earth. This can be done at any time in the 

 spring, summer or early fall. When well rooted, a separate rose 

 bush can be cut off and dug up from each joint of the shoot. 



Rose bushes should be moved or transplanted early in the 

 spring before a new growth is started ; in this way they will some- 

 times bloom well the same year. 



The ancient poets say that the first rose was brought into the 

 world by the "god of love," and the occasion was a desire to bribe 

 Harpocrates, the god of silence, to an engagement that he would 

 discover none of the secrets of Venus. Hence it became a custom 

 to place a rose in rooms devoted to mirth and entertainment as 

 a symbol in the presence of which all restraint might be laid 

 aside; accordingly the proverb under the rose denote secrecy and 

 inviolable silence. The rose is also from the same cause the 

 direct emblem of silence. Besides the use of the rose at the feasts 

 convivial meetings of the ancients, it was also frequently laid upon 

 the tombs of the dead either to signify the silence of death, the 

 nightingale in another to be chosen with, or as an offering 

 grateful to the deceased. I quote from "Poetry of Life," published 

 more than thirty years ago by Miss Sarah Stickney, the beau- 

 tiful language that a lady only can use. 



"From the majestic sunflower towering above her sisters of the 

 garden, and faithfully turning to welcome the god of day to the 

 litfle humble and well-known weed, that is said to close its crim- 

 son eye before impending showers, there is scarcely one flower 

 which may not from its loveliness, its perfume, its natural situa- 

 tion or its classical association, be considered highly poetical. The 

 Mady rose,' as poets have designated this queen of beauty, claims 

 the greatest consideration in speaking of the poetry of flowers. In 

 the poetic world the first honors have been awarded to the rose, 

 for what reason it is not easy to define, unless from its exquisite 

 combination of perfume form, and color, which has entitled this 

 sovereign of flowers in one country to be mated with the 

 nightingale, in another to be chosen with the distinction 



