92 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



bloom separate!}', reposing in its own green, and remember that a 

 few colors have a prettier effect than many. If a com!)i nation is 

 thonght to be desirable, red, white, and buff are pleasing. The 

 beauty of roses is much impaired when they' are displayed in 

 masses. As a rule, if there are to be many flowers, use the deli- 

 cate shades ; if few, the deeper tones ; and we should not forget 

 that large and choice roses are always most effective when dis- 

 played in standards pi'oper for their reception as single specimens. 

 Born in the East, the rose has been diffused, like the sunlight, 

 over all the world. Syria, according to some writers, took its 

 name from Suri, a species of rose indigenous to that country. 

 From the Celtic word " rhudd," signifying red, we trace a resem- 

 blance in the names by which various nations distinguish this plant, 

 — Rhodon, Rosa, Rosier, Rosajo, Rosal, Rosiera, Rosenstock. Clas- 

 sical writers, from Homer to Horace, extol the rose above all other 

 flowers ; and those who loved beauty most have been its greatest 

 admirers. The rose is "the honor and beaut}' of flowers," sa3'8 

 Anacreon ; and it is spoken of at the Persian feast as 



" The floweret of a hundred leaves, 

 Expanding while the dew-fall flows, 

 And every leaf its balm receives." 



In the beginning of the ninth centur}' Charlemagne manifested 

 an appreciation of this particular flower, and later the hanging 

 gardens in Hispania, under the Moorish dominion, were lielil}' and 

 heavil}^ decorated in brilliant bud and-bloom of roses. How ele- 

 gantly Cowper describes the expanding rose, filled with the rain- 

 drops of the passing shower, as " weeping for the buds it had left 

 with regret ; " and Cowle}' sings of a rose, surpassing those we have 

 on earth, that the angels scattered from gilded baskets : — 



" Some did the way with full-grown roses spread, 

 Their smell divine, and color strangely red; 

 Not such as our dull gardens proudly wear, 

 Whom weathers taint and winds' rude kisses tear." 



The Empress Josephine was passionately devoted to the rose, 

 and sought for every novelty which the nations of Europe pos- 

 sessed, in order to gratify her pleasures in the garden at Mal- 

 maison ; and it is said of her, that in all her greatness, a single 

 rose in her hair surpassed the jewelled diadem. In almost the last 



