58 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



twenty years," writes Mr. Robertson, a nursery- 

 man at Kilkenny, in 1834, ''about 8 or 10 feet 

 high, which is a sheet of bloom every May, and 

 throughout the rest of the season flowers with 

 the Boursault, Noisette, Hybrid China, and other 

 Roses which are budded on it." " At the Isle of 

 Bourbon," writes Mr. Rivers, quoting Monsieur 

 Breon, in the 'Rose Amateurs' Guide,' " the inhab- 

 itants generally enclose their land with hedges 

 made of two rows of Roses — one row of the 

 Common China Rose, the other of the Red Four 

 Seasons " And in the * Gardeners' Chronicle,' of 

 June 19, 1869, we have the description of a hedge 

 of Roses, grown at Digswell, Hertfordshire, 280 

 feet in length. 



Catullus, in one beautiful line, describes the 

 benign and gracious influences which we should 

 seek to obtain for the Rose. He writes of a 

 flower, 



'* Quern mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber," 



to which the air nimbly and sweetly recommends 

 itself, bringing the complexion of beauty, but not 

 visiting the cheek too roughly, which the sun 

 strengthens but does not scorch, which the shower 

 refreshes but the tempest spares. Such a genial 

 home we must find, or make, for our Roses, 



