THE ROSE GARDEN. I 1 



make their purchases ; and very large quantities are prepared and sold. There 

 are about thirty-six places in Ghazeepore where Rose-water is distilled. 



" The chief use the natives appear to make of the Rose-water is at the period of 

 their festivals and weddings. It is then distributed largely to the guests as they 

 arrive, and sprinkled with profusion in the apartments. 



" I should consider that the value of the Roses sold for the manufacture of 

 Rose-water may be estimated at 15,000 rupees a year, and from this to 20,000 ; 

 and from the usual price asked for the Rose-water, and for which it is sold, 

 I should consider there is a profit of 40,000 rupees. The natives are very fond 

 of using the Rose-water as medicine, or as a vehicle for other mixtures ; and they 

 consume a good deal of the petals for the Conserve of Roses." 



But Roses are grown for the purpose of manufacturing Rose-water in other 

 countries beside Persia. At Provins, a town forty-seven miles S. E. of Paris, 

 which has long been celebrated for its conserve of Roses, the French Rose has 

 been cultivated ; and in the environs of Paris, the Damask, and other kinds. 

 In some parts of Surrey and Kent, in our own country, they are grown in consi- 

 derable quantities — the Provence, Damask, and French kinds, indiscriminately. 

 In the process of distillation, six pounds of Rose-leaves are said to be enough to 

 make a gallon of Rose-water ; but much depends on the stage in which the 

 flowers are gathered, the best stage being just before full-blown. 



The Rose has been valued in Medicine from the remotest times : it was so in 

 the time of Hippocrates ; and the Romans believed the root to be efficacious in 

 cases of hydrophobia : hence jDrobably the term ' dog-rose.' Many writers have 

 attributed to it virtues which it does not possess ; though it is still used in medi- 

 cine, and valued for its tonic and astringent properties. The hips of the Dog-rose, 

 when reduced to pulp, are also used in pharmacy, to give consistence to pills and 

 electuaries. 



But to return more immediately to the history of the Rose. — This flower, 

 having been considered as the emblem of innocence and purity from remote times, 

 seems so far to have influenced the early Christian writers, as to induce them to 

 place it in Paradise. It is well known, also, that the seal of the celebrated Luther 

 was a Rose. 



In Hungary our flower is held in great esteem. I am informed by a friend 

 who has resided in that country, that it is customary with ladies of rank and 

 fashion to take bouquets of Roses and go into the woods to bud the wild kinds 

 which they may encounter in their rambles. It must be an agreeable and exhi- 

 larating task to go in search of Roses during the flowering season ; for I am 

 assured it is no uncommon thing to meet with the finest varieties blooming in the 

 most unfrequented places. 



In Holland the Rose seems to have made but little way, although it was from 

 that country the most beautiful of the tribe — the Moss Rose — was first introduced 

 to England, from whence it found its way to France. The transactions which 

 took place in Holland during the Florimania associate no unpleasant ideas with 



