4 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



the aphis ; " but I have obtained trustworthy and interesting 

 information from several of our chief Rosarians, who have 

 kindly answered my inquiries in a fraternal and friendly 

 spirit. Without mention of names or minute details, I may 

 state that these all bear witness to a most extensive and 

 progressive enlargement of the demand for Roses. The 

 largest of our wholesale growers writes to me that he has 

 more than twenty acres of Roses, and that his stock of 

 Briers and Manetti, with Roses on their own roots and 

 Roses in pots, amounts to half a million. The young but 

 most successful representative of one of our older firms 

 informs me, that their first planting of Rose-stocks, so an 

 old Brier-man tells him, was a lot of 2000, some forty years 

 ago ; and that from 2000 they advanced in 1861 to 62,000 

 Briers. In i860, he adds, we commenced the out-door 

 culture of the Manetti with 4000 : this year (1868) we have 

 60,000. Rapid as this increase appears, the same writer 

 goes on to say that he anticipates a time when their present 

 stock will seem Lilliputian in comparison with that which 

 will be required for the home and export trade. I propose 

 to revert in some future chapter to the history of this de- 

 velopment.* Suffice it to say, that where Roses were grown 



* See p. 201. 



