The History of the Rose. 21 



more fit and convenient to have placed it with the most glorious flowers of the world, 

 than to insert the same here among base and thornie shrubs ; for the Rose doth 

 deserve the chiefest and most principal place among all flowers whatsoever." Follow- 

 ing this is a description of the varieties then known and a detailed account of the 

 preparations used in the alleviation of human ailments. 



William Lawson, whose " New Orchard and Garden " was published in 1638, 

 names " The Rose Red, Damask, Velvet, and Double Provence ; the Sweet Musk 

 Rose, Double and Single ; the Double and Single White Rose." Sir Hugh Plat in 

 the " Jewel House of Art and Nature " (1653) has a good deal to say (p. 175) on the 

 distilling of Rose-water and the drying of Rose-leaves ; and the same author in the 

 "Garden of Eden " (1675) writes "Cut your Roses after they have done bearing, so 

 soon as the moon will give you leave, viz., the fourth, fifth, or sixth day after the 

 change, and so you shall have store of Roses again about Michaelmas or after." 



There is now before me a work published on Gardening in 1654, entitled " The 

 Countryman's Recreation, or the Art of Planting, Graffing, and Gardening, in Three 

 Books." In a work with such a title we might expect to find a variety of flowers 

 treated of. But no ! fruit trees seem then to have been the chief ornament of country 

 gardens ; the utile was preferred to the dulce ; in truth, the attention of our fore- 

 fathers seems to have been chiefly directed towards the " making of good cyder," and 

 the " keeping of plummes ! " In the above-mentioned work there is but one flower 

 named, and that is the Rose ! Here is the article as it appears in the original : 



" To GRAFFE A ROSE ON THE HOLLY. For to graffe the Rose, that his leaves shall keep all the year green, 

 some do take and cleave the holly, and do graffe in a red or white Rose-bud ; and then put clay or mosse to him, 

 and let him grow. And some put the Rose-bud into a slit of the bark, and so put clay and mosse, and bind him 

 featly therein, and let him grow, and he shall catty his leaf all the year." 



This is a recipe for obtaining Evergreen Roses ! Satis superque. Must we infer 

 that practical men in those days held tenets such as these, or that they were merely 

 the effusions of the brain of some would-be savant in horticultural matters? As 

 gardening was then a practical art, we cannot suppose the former to have been the 

 case, since the very first experiment would throw a doubt on such a proposition, 

 which the failure of every subsequent attempt would confirm ; and thus the most 

 credulous would soon be undeceived. The latter would certainly seem the juster 

 inference. Without wishing to be too severe against the early writers on Horticulture, 

 we certainly were riot aware that the sun of Horticultural science had reached the 

 meridian so long since as 1654, and feel some concern, as well as humiliation, that 

 more than two centuries should elapse without our profiting by so wonderful a 

 discovery ! We cannot forbear quoting certain lines of Virgil, met with in our school- 

 days, and to which, perhaps, the above writer was indebted for his idea : 



Inseritur vero et icetu nucis arbutus horrida ; 

 Et steriles platani malos gessere valentes : 



