460 Old Time Gardens 



other Roses have to some degree. The color of the 

 Cabbage Rose is very warm and pleasing, a clear, 

 happy pink, and the flower has a wholesome, open 

 look ; but it is not a beautiful Rose by florists' stand- 

 ards, — few of the old Roses are, — and it is rather 

 awkward in growth. The Cabbage Rose is said to 

 have been a favorite in ancient Rome. I wish it had 

 a prettier name ; it is certainly worthy one. 



The Hundred-leaved Rose was akin to the Cab- 

 bage Rose, and shared its delicious fragrance. In its 

 rather irregular shape it resembled the present Duke 

 of Sussex Rose. 



One of the rarest of old-time Roses in our gar- 

 dens to-day is the red and white mottled York and 

 Lancaster. It is as old as the sixteenth century. 

 Shakespeare writes in the Sonnets : — 



"The Roses fearfully in thorns did stand 

 One blushing shame, another white despair. 

 A third, nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both." 



They are what Chaucer loved, " sweitie roses red, 

 brode, and open also," Roses of a broad, flat expanse 

 when in full bloom ; they have a cheerier, heartier, 

 more gracious look than many of the new Roses 

 that never open far from bud, that seem so pinched 

 and narrow. What ineffable fragrance do they pour 

 out from every wide-open flower, a fragrance that 

 is the very spirit of the Oriental Attar of Roses ; all 

 the sensuous sweetness of the attar is gone, and 

 only that which is purest and best remains. I be- 

 lieve, in thinking of it, that it equals the perfume 

 of the Cabbage Rose, which, ere now, I have always 



