214 COME INTO THE GARDEN 



The parents, grandparents, great-grandpar- 

 ents and so on of our present-day garden roses 

 are not all of these, by any means; and yet when 

 one attempts to follow the geneological lines of 

 almost any individual, or even class, back to 

 their inception, it almost appears that they must 

 be! For rose enthusiasts from away back of the 

 days of the Greeks and Romans have been at 

 work raising roses and intermingling species, 

 until it is practically impossible, even for the 

 most careful and patient botanist, to sort out 

 which from other. So it all resolves into famil- 

 iarizing oneself with about half a dozen present- 

 day classes — unless further study of the subject 

 is made just for the fun of knowing. 



These classes are the Hybrid Perpetual, the 

 Tea, the Hybrid Tea, the Rugosa, and the Wich- 

 uraiana. There may also be a speaking ac- 

 quaintance with the Multiflora and the Noi- 

 sette, but this need not be worried about in the 

 beginning. Indeed these classifications may be 

 lumped off in two general sections, according to 

 natural habit, and one labeled summer flowering 

 and the other summer-and-autumn flowering. 

 Yet it is not enough to adhere to these two di- 

 visions; for in buying plants and tending them 

 and indeed in handling them at all, it is really 

 necessary to know with a fair degree of exacti- 



