1/8 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



'* Roniam tu mihi sola facis," 



**You make me callous to all meaner charms." 



" Let others seek tlie giddy throng 

 Of mirth and revelry ; 

 The simpler joys which nature yields 

 Are dearer lar to me." 



And let there be, by all means, among those joys 

 included a bed of the Common Moss- Rose — a 

 " well-aired" bed of dry subsoil, for damp is 

 fatal — in which, planted on its own roots, well 

 manured, closely pruned, and pegged down, it 

 will yield its flowers in abundanT:e, most lovely, 

 like American girls, in the bud, but long retaining 

 the charms of \\\€\x premiere jciinesse before they 

 arrive at rosehood. When the soil is heavy, the 

 Moss-Rose will grow upon the Brier; and I have 

 had beautiful standards of Baronne de Wassenaer, a 

 pretty cupped Rose, but wanting in substance ; of 

 Comtesse de Murinais, a very robust Rose as to 

 wood, but by no means so generous of its white 

 petals ;, of the charming Cristata or Crested, a 

 most distinct and attractive Rose, first found, it is 

 said, on the walls of a convent near Fribourg or 

 Berne, which all Rosarians should grow, having 

 buds thickly fringed with moss, and these chang- 



