4 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



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 whole- 

 sale 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 

 outdoor culture of the Manetti with 4000 : this 

 year 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 development* Suffice it to say, 

 that where Roses were grown twenty years age 

 by the dozen they are grown by the thousand, 

 and where by the thousand now by the acre. 



* See p. 198. 



