Literary Notice. 1 25 



extend around the sides of the main hall, which will enable visitors to look down 

 on the entire display of fruits, flowers, &c. The hall will be lighted with a triple 

 row of brackets, having three to five gas jets on each, and extending around the 

 sides of the hall. This will leave a clear space, in the middle of the hall, of 

 seventy feet wide, fifty feet high, and nearly two hundred feet long. This will 

 include the "Foyer," — a beautiful room of seventy by thirty feet, with thirty 

 feet ceiling (opening into the main hall), in which the monthly meetings of the 

 society will be held, and in which its valuable library will be placed. The annual 

 displays of the society will be held in the main hall. It is not yet decided when 

 the formal opening of the hall will take place, but probably in the spring of 

 1867. The ladies of the society intend to hold a grand bazaar, for the sale of 

 horticultural, floricultural, and fancy articles, on the 29th of May next ; at which 

 time the society will hold its spring, rose, and strawberry show and competition 

 together, forming a fine horticultural display. The proceeds of this enterprise 

 will be devoted to frescoing and otherwise decorating the hall. 



LITERARY NOTICE. 



The Book of Roses. By Francis Parkman. Boston : J. E. Tilton & Co. 

 1866. Pp. 225. A new edition. 



As there are certain books that no gentleman's library should be without, 

 so there are certain flowers that his garden cannot dispense with ; and chief of 

 these, by common consent, is the rose. 



Happily the office of a critic is here very simple indeed. We have only to 

 name the book, and point out a few of its excellences, and then leave our readers 

 to find the rest for thernselves, — as they are sure to do. 



Mr. Parkman divides his book into two parts, — the first devoted to the laws, 

 methods, and operations of rose-culture proper ; the second to a classifica- 

 tion of roses, a list of the best varieties, and the novelties of 1866, — a most 

 judicious and sensible arrangement, and one which makes a pleasing contrast 

 to the condition of some horticultural books it has been our fate to read. 



The first chapter treats of planting, pruning, preparation of the soil, novel 

 methods of growing fine plants, and of the enemies of the rose ; and all these 

 topics are discussed at length, and with much clearness and precision. 



The second chapter is devoted to pot-culture, and to the somewhat neglected 

 art of raising specimen plants. The third chapter gives instruction in propaga- 

 tion in all known ways ; while various miscellaneous matters, including the pro- 

 duction of new varieties, hybridizing, and the improvement of climbing roses, 

 find space for ample consideration in chapter four. 



" Raising seedhng roses is a recreation of so much interest," says Mr. Park- 

 man, "that few who once enter upon it ever abandon their pleasing task." We 

 who plant our grape and strawberry seeds every fall, and watch the seedlings 

 with undiminished interest from summer to summer, are very ready to believe 

 him, and trust that his explicit directions will enlist a host of experimenters. 



