130 PARSONS ON THE ROSE. 



CHAPTER ym. 



l^rULTIPLICATION BY SEED AND HYBRIDIZING. 



We have described^ in former pages, the various modes 

 of cultivating the Rose, and of propagating the many- 

 beautiful varieties which exist, and would now briefly ad- 

 vert to a mode of developing still farther the beauty 

 which lies hid within the horny covering that protects the 

 dormant germ of vitality — in other words, of obtaining 

 new varieties by seed. With the making of the seed-bed 

 commenced a new era in the culture of the Rose, and ad- 

 vancing with rapid strides, it made more progress in forty 

 years than in centuries before. The Dutch seem to have 

 been the first to raise roses from seed, by the same mode 

 which they applied successfully to their tulips, hyacinths, 

 etc., and from the time that this mode became generally 

 employed, the varieties of roses began to increase. In 

 this species of cultivation the French soon outstripped 

 their Dutch neighbors, and gained the reputation which 

 they still retain, of preeminent skill in the production of 

 new varieties of roses from the seed. 



From 1805 to 1810, the Empress Josephine, whose love 

 for flowers is well known, collected at her favorite resi- 

 dence, Malmaison, the choicest varieties of the Rose that 

 could be obtained from Holland, Germany, and Belgium, 

 and thus gave an increased impulse to the culture of roses 

 in the vicinity of Paris. 



According to De Pronville, a French writer, there were, 

 in 1814, only 182 varieties of roses, and the advantage of 

 multiplication by seed is sufliciently evinced by the fact 

 that there are now more than 6,000 varieties, the poor- 

 est of which are much better than anv which existed at 



