14 The Rose Garden. 



successfully withstood the fury of the snow-laden tempests which have of late 

 repeatedly swept over Eastern Europe, enwrapping thousands of square miles of 

 territory in a cold white mantle of such density and weight that whole villages and 

 countless homesteads have vanished for the time being under its frozen folds." Daily 

 Telegraph, 3 1st March 1888. 



Roses are cultivated extensively in the plains of Bulgaria for the purpose of ex- 

 tracting their perfume. A correspondent of The Times, writing from Sofia, 25th May 

 1888, says " Prince Ferdinand has gone to visit Kezanlik, the Valley of Roses. The 

 valley is at this season in full bloom, and with its countless thousands of rose bushes 

 it constitutes a lovely scene." 



In Holland the Rose seems to have made but little way, although that country 

 possessed the richest collections in Europe down to 1815, and it was from that 

 country that the most beautiful of the tribe, the Moss Rose, was first introduced to 

 England, from whence it found its way to France. In the " Florilegium " of Emanuel 

 Sweert, published at Amsterdam in 1612, ten Roses are figured, one of which, however, 

 is a hibiscus. Dodoens, who wrote about the same time, tells us " There be divers 

 kinds of Roses, whereof some are of the garden, sweet smelling, and are set, planted, 

 and favoured ; the others are wild, growing of their own kind (without setting) about 

 hedges and the borders of fields. The first kind of garden Rose is the white Rose, 

 whose stalks or branches are long and of a woody nature or substance, ten, twelve, or 

 twenty feet high, and sometimes longer if they be stayed up or succoured." (A New 

 Herbal by Rembert Dodoens, translated by Henry Lyte, edition 1619, p. 469). He also 

 gives a list of ten kinds, and after describing them, and the habitats of the wild kinds 

 and their season of flowering, he adds a new list of names, some of which are probably 

 the same kinds as those in the first list. He finishes with remarks on the history and 

 medicinal virtues of the plant. 



The transactions which took place in Holland during the Florimania associate no 

 unpleasant ideas with our flower. The Rose was without the pale. The Tulip, the 

 Hyacinth, the Ranunculus, the Anemone, these, with a few of minor importance, were 

 the pride of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries these were the flowers of 

 Holland, and the enthusiasm with which they were cultivated there had rendered 

 them popular in other European countries. Thus the Rose lay neglected. Its 

 capabilities of improvement were not thought of or unknown. The unlocking of its 

 treasures was reserved for another nationality and for more recent times. The skilful 

 and persevering French florists, to whose labours we are indebted for the choicest 

 ornaments of the Rose Garden, lived long to admire the productions of their genius, 

 and to witness their favourite flower reigning without a rival in the floral world. 



France is a country naturally rich in Roses. Mizault, who wrote the first book in 

 France specially devoted to Horticulture (1535), mentions four species only, and 

 Olivier de Serres, writing in 1600, does not recognise a larger number. La Ouintinie 



