132 CALIFORNIA GARDEN FLOWERS 



finer single specimens can occasionally be seen, for there are people 

 who have developed horticultural art in the rose more carefully and 

 generously and where this art, and professional effort to promote it, 

 secure single blooms for exhibition or quantities of bloom for com- 

 merce which surpass California rose products because we give a 

 minimum of attention to the rose that way. On the other hand, the 

 roses in common gardens and the roses which break free and surmount 

 trees and buildings, making the landscape brilliant with their beauty 

 and the air fragrant with their perfume, are probably as fine in these 

 ways as roses are anywhere. 



Some of our engravings are suggestive of the rose as a decorative 

 plant for home adornment. It is remarkable how cheap a habitation 

 can be transformed into picturesque beauty and charm by the use of 

 a few rose plants. These plants may be allowed to run riot, and they 

 will develop a wild beauty which is irresistibly charming, or they may 

 be carefully trained to carry bloom and foliage close to the supporting 

 structure, and thus preserve its outlines as the neat gardener will 

 prefer. In either case the rose is willing and grateful, and therefore 

 delights all tastes in the gardening art. 



Another manifestation of the love of the rose for California is the 

 rose bordered driveway, which is so popular in our rural and suburban 

 districts. Here, too, the rose accepts the owner's desires, and will 

 make grand standard trees or shapely bushes according to the pruning 

 which is given, or it will rush into continuous banks, and by inter- 

 twining take possession of the whole roadside spaces. 



It is, however, as an arbor plant that the rose comes most fully into 

 California life. To live under the rose is literally a possibility in 

 California. Under the shade of the rose the hammock can be drawn 

 and the table spread for al fresco refreshment. Many a rural table is 

 spread for months on a rose fringed veranda or in a simple arbor 

 made of poles to support the masses of rose bloom and foliage in 

 which the birds build their nests and from which their songs break 

 forth to greet the dawn or dismiss the evening twilight. California 

 open air life is delightful and the rose is its charming priestess. 



Famous Old Roses. Almost from pioneer times California publica- 

 tions of all kinds have given measurements of the growths of rose- 

 trees, rose bushes and rose vines, as to be seen in different parts of the 

 state, and the rosarian, statistically inclined, could easily find data for 

 a treatise on the subject. It did not take the pioneers long to ascer- 

 tain that choice varieties which could only survive an Eastern winter 

 with glass above and steam below were at home in open air in Cali- 

 fornia and reached a breadth and stature rivaling even that of the 

 Sunny South of America or France. The result was that such roses 

 were early distributed in this State, and each plant brought into a 



