292 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



she gave to Antony, had them laid two cubits thick on the floor of the banquet-room, and 

 then caused nets to be spread over the flowers in order to render the footing elastic. Helio- 

 gabalus caused not only the banquet-rooms, but also the colonnades that led to them, to be 

 covered with roses, interspersed with lilies, violets, hyacinths, and narcissi, and walked 

 about upon this flowery platform. 



As a source of artificial perfumes, the rose was employed by the ancients in other ways 

 than in those oils and waters that are familiar to modern, life. When the leaves had been 

 pressed out for higher uses, they were dried and reduced into a powder, called " diapasma,-' 

 which was laid on the skin after a bath, and then washed off with cold water. The object 

 of this process was to impart a fragrance to the skin. As a medicine, quinces preserved in 

 honey were introduced into a decoction of rose-leaves, and the preparation was deemed good 

 for complaints of the stomach. In the culinary art, roses had likewise their place of honor, 

 and were put into many dishes for the sake of their pleasant flavor. For this end they were 

 sometimes preserved a delicate process, as they were very apt to become mouldy. 



But the connection between the rose and the kitchen takes its most imposing form in the 

 rose-pudding, for which we give Herr Wiistemann's receipt, based upon the authority of 

 Apicius : 



Take cleaned rose-leaves, carefully cut oif the white part at % the lower extremity, put 

 them into a mortar, and pound them, continually sprinkling them meanwhile with a "sauce 

 piquante" Afterwards, add about a glass and a half of the same sauce, and pass the 

 whole through a sieve. Next, take the brains from five calves' heads, remove the skin, and 

 sprinkle over them a drachm of fine pepper. Beat all this in a mortar, still pouring in the 

 sauce as before. Then take the yolks of eight eggs, stir them up with a glass and a half of 

 wine and a glass of sack, and add a little oil. Lastly, anoint the form, into which the 

 whole is put, with oil, and so bake it that it may be equally heated at the top and at the 

 bottom. The pudding is then served up hot. 



Influence of Poetry on the Cultivation and Appreciation of Flowers. 



" EVERY one," says Ruskin, "who is about to lay out a limited extent of garden, in which 

 he wishes to introduce many flowers, should read and attentively study, first Shelley, and 

 next Shakspeare. The latter, indeed, induces the most beautiful connections between thought 

 and flower that can be found in the whole range of European literature ; but he very often 

 uses the symbolical effect of the flower, which it can only have in the educated mind, instead 

 of the natural and true effect of the flower, which it must have more or less upon every 

 mind. Thus, when Ophelia, presenting her wild flowers, says, ' There's rosemary, that's for 

 remembrance, pray you, love, remember ; and there's pansies, that's for thoughts' the infi- 

 nite beauty of the passage depends upon the arbitrary meaning attached to the flowers. But 



when Shelley speaks of 



< The lily of the vale, 



Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale, 

 That the light of her tremulous bells is seen 

 Through their pavilions of tender green' 



he is etherealizing an impression which the mind naturally receives from the flower. Conse- 

 quently, as it is only by their natural influence that flowers can address the mind through 

 the eye, we must read Shelley to learn how to use flowers, and Shakspeare to love them. In 

 both writers we find the wild flower possessing soul as well as life, and mingling its influence 

 most intimately, like an untaught melody, with the deepest and most secret streams of human 

 emotion." 



New Roses. 



MR. C. G. WILKINSON, of Ealing, England, furnishes to the Horticulturalist the following 

 memoranda of the recent new varieties introduced into England : 



For the last season or two there has been no paucity of novelties among roses, many of 

 which may fairly claim, not only distinctness of color, but decided improvement in form. Of 



