49S Siraij Tkonghts on Roses. 



Mouchelet, Lady Alice Peel. Louis Bonaparte, Robin Hood, 

 Due d'Aiimale, and Marquise Boccella, have all bloomed 

 remarkably early this season, and most brilliantly — in fact, 

 they are our earliest, as well as some of our finest late roses. 



Were I a millionaire^ my rose-garden should be a park, 

 and my groups of hybrid perpetual and Bourbon roses nu- 

 merous " as leaves in Yalombrosa." By the way, planting 

 mixed clumps or beds of hybrid perpetuals is not " good 

 practice ;" fix on a few really good sorts, and plant a clump 

 of each. Aubernon, Lady Alice Peel, Due d'Aumale, and 

 Marquise Boccella, are all dwarf compact growers ; they are 

 all most beautiful, but, if planted in the same bed, are soon 

 hidden by such a giant, or perhaps giantess, as Baronne Pre- 

 vost and some others. 



How difficult it is to find among the numerous new varie- 

 ties of this family any one to excel our established favorites. 

 We now want a scarlet La Reine, a yellow Madame Laflfay, 

 and a white William Jesse; there are, however, a few new 

 roses really worthy of our notice ; a word or two about them 

 will perhaps not be out of place as a guide to purchasers. 

 What a crowd of names of new autumnal roses just now 

 pours in upon me; my brain recoils at the dense cloudy 

 mass, with only here and there a star to brighten it. 



1 well remember the days when the little word " new" to 

 a flower or plant was at once a passport. In my very early 

 descriptive catalogues of roses, all that was required was to 

 have a new rose at a high price, its quality was of secondary 

 importance — the price sold it. The floricultural world is 

 now, perhaps, more sad, certainly more wise. 



It has therefore become the duty of every cultivator of 

 roses to prove every variety before he offers it for sale, unless 

 ofl^ered at the risk. Upwards of one hundred varieties of 

 hybrid perpetual roses have, as the French term it, " been 

 placed in commerce" since the summer of 1846; from these 

 not more than ten or twelve could be selected as really dis- 

 tinct and good; they are nearly all pretty, — for what rose is 

 not? — but they are not better than those favorites enumerated 

 in the early part of this article. Among the new roses that 

 have bloomed this season in brilliant perfection, Geant des 

 Batailles holds the first place, — owing, I presume, to the heat 



