HUMBUGS IN HORTICULTURE. 219 



an immense colored engraving, showing a tree, on which 

 Strawberries were growing, and as big as Oranges. My 

 gaze was attracted to a handsome plate of Bhie Moss 

 Roses, and I modestly asked the price of the plants. The 

 polite Frenchman (who was doing the principal selling 

 for the concern) whisked out from beneath the table 

 three plants, representing them to be Moss Roses (which, 

 by-the-way, were all alike, and were all our common 

 Prairie Rose), and said, **This one, he bloom only once, 

 I tell you the truth, so I sell him for two dollar. This 

 one, he be the Remontant, he bloom twice — just twice — 

 I sell him for three dollar ; but this one, he be the ever- 

 blooming, perpetual Blue Moss Rose, he bloom all the 

 time, he cheap at five dollars." I quietly remarked, if 

 it bloomed all the time, why was it not blooming now ? 

 He looked at me pityingly, and said, ** My dear sir, you 

 expect too much. These Moss Rose just come over in 

 the ship from Paris. You take him home and plant 

 him, and he bloom right away, and he keep on bloom- 

 ing." I did not take him home, but 1 took the story, 

 something in the shape it is now told, and had it pub- 

 lished in one of the leading New York papers, and in 

 less than a week the ** Blue Rose Men " had pulled up 

 stakes, but, no doubt, to pitch their camp somewhere 

 else, and set their traps for fresh victims. The '^ Blue 

 Rose Men" are very impartial in their wanderings, and 

 rarely omit a city of any size, beginning usually in New 

 Orleans in January, running northward, and ending up 

 with Philadelphia, New York, and Boston through April 

 and May. 



These humbugs in horticulture have their comical side. 

 A few years ago, in passing St. Paul's Church (Broad w^ay). 

 New York, I saw an old negro squatted on the pavement 

 with a great bundle of plants, carefully mossed up, lying 

 alongside of him. On inquiring what they were, he said 

 they were Rose bushes ; Rose bushes having all the good 



