OLD AND NEW ROSES. 95 



the best is soapsuds ; all that is made in the house should be 

 saved, to give the rose bushes a bath two or three limes a week. 

 The next best insecticide is water from the hose. Tobacco 

 water and hellebore powder are excellent, bnt whale-oil soap, 

 unless carefully applied, is destructive of the foliage as well as the 

 insects. Rose-bugs must be picked off b^^ hand. Tliere is a 

 beetle which cuts the foliage at night, and drops to the ground, but, 

 unlike some insects, there is only one crop of them. The speaker 

 picked a quart one night, and the next aliout half as many; the 

 third night only a few ; the fourth night none were to be found, 

 and there were very few the next year. 



William C. Strong said that Mr. Bourn's paper contained a 

 great deal of eloquence and a great deal of practical information. 

 His experience was that pruning roses in the fall is injurious : the 

 winter often kills a great deal of wood ; and we can see better in 

 the spring whether any pruning is necessarj^ beyond removing the 

 dead wood. His experience also is that roses grafted on the 

 Manetti stock, even the strongest growers, — General Jacqueminot, 

 for instance, — give the best results. He would add to the list of 

 desirable roses the Jiosa rugosa, which, though the flowers are 

 single, has admirable foliage, and is surpassingly beautiful as a 

 shrub. 



John C. Hovey agreed with Mr. Beard in regard to insects. He 

 asked wh}- so little is said of the white Cottage rose, which he had 

 seen in old gardens, and thought verj' desirable. All the plants 

 that he had ever seen were old. He had been unsuccessful in 

 raising it from cuttings or seed. 



Benjamin G. Smith said that among his earliest recollections 

 was that of the Cottage rose. He has a plant which he got twenty- 

 eight years ago. He regards it as a most satisfactory variety. 



Rev. A. B. Muzzey had listened with much interest to the his- 

 torical account of the rose, given b}' the essayist, from which it 

 appears that it has been a favorite in all ages. Undoubtedly it is 

 the favorite flower of a majority now. In his father's garden were 

 two large, white rose bushes, from the flowers of which rose-water 

 was made ; but much less of this is made now than formerl}-. 

 Roses were grown in the house more successfuUj' in former years 

 than in modern times ; in his early days he knew a lady who 

 cultivated them with great success, but, although she continues the 

 same methods, she fails. Tlie speaker asked what is the cause of 

 this change — is it the atmosphere, or the food, or the illuminating 



