VI 



THE CHOICE OF FLOWERS 



In making a choice of flowers for the home 

 garden do not buy exotics and tender things. 

 They will not grow, at least, without housing in 

 the winter; and if you own the usual little house 

 and little patch of ground around or back of it, 

 you can hardly add a conservatory to your estab- 

 lishment. Plant the hardy things. And first of 

 them is the rose. This flower, in Its various 

 phases modest, flaunting; demure, sumptuous; 

 timid, aggressive; solitary, social. Is probably the 

 oldest of all the treasures of the garden. It 

 Is the flower of Venus and of Mary; it has 

 wreathed the brows of emperors and martyrs, of 

 poets and revelers; it has figured, not merely in 

 sentimental and religious traditions, like those 

 of St. Rose and St. Elizabeth, but In history, for 

 had we not a war of the roses? Of our garden 

 It Is queen; or shall we give that rank to the lily, 

 and greet the rose as king? There Is a mascu- 

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