22 The Rose Garden. 



Castaneee fagus ornusque incanuit albo 



Flore piri, glandemque sues fregere sub ulmis. 



Georg. lib. ii. ver. 69-72.* 



* The thin-leaved arbute hazel-graffs receives, 

 And planes huge apples bear, that bore but leaves. 

 Thus mastful beech the bristly chestnut bears, 

 And the wild ash is white with blooming pears, 

 And greedy swine from grafted elms are fed 

 With falling acorns that on oaks are bred. DRYDEN'S Virgil. 



Such are the workings of the imagination, that the black Roses produced by 

 grafting on black-currant bushes, the blue Roses of the Moors, and the oft-talked-of 

 yellow Moss, are already before our eyes ! Could we but retain them there ! But, 

 alas ! this were impossible. Creatures of the imagination, a moment's sober reflection 

 dissipates you in thin air ! 



But to be serious. John Rea in "Ceres, Flora, and Pomona," 1675, devotes a 

 chapter to Roses (chap, iv.) in which he names and describes thirty kinds. He tells 

 us " They are usually disposed up and down the garden in bushes, and under walls, 

 and set in rows and hedges, supported and kept in on either side ; the several 

 coloured Roses intermixed and well placed blooming together will make a most 

 gallant and glorious prospect." 



In the " Historia Plantarum " of John Ray, published in 1686, thirty-seven species 

 of Roses are enumerated and described. 



John Worlidge in " Systema Horticulture " (second edition), 1683, has a section 

 " Of Ordering Rose Trees." He says " To have roses until Christmas you may 

 plant the Monthly Rose in some niche of your south wall and you shall have 

 Rosebuds fresh and fair in October, and in mild winters in November, which by 

 shutters artificially made may be defended from the cold, sometimes admitting the 

 sun, until Christmas." 



Samuel Gilbert published the second edition of " The Florists' Vade Mecum " 

 in 1683. He gives a full account of the varieties known at that time, with instructions 

 for accelerating and retarding the period of flowering, and has something to say on 

 budding, layering, and pruning. Near the conclusion of a pretty long article he 

 bursts forth : " These dew-empearled musky fragrant perfuming flowers deserve the 

 principal place among all others whatsoever, being not only esteemed for their beauty 

 and virtues and odoriferous scents, but because they are the honour and ornament 

 of our English sceptre." 



London & Wise in "The Retired Gardener," 1706, give a chapter of eleven pages 

 (pp. 719-729) to Roses, which includes the following history : 



"On a day when they were keeping Holy-day in Heaven, Flora summon'd all the deities that preside 

 over gardens, and when they were met address'd herself to them in this manner : ' You, who have always been 

 the shining ornaments of my court, I have now called together to consult in a matter of great importance. I 

 know I am the soveraign of all the flow'ry kind, but for the more firm establishment of my empire I am thinking 

 to chuse them a queen of a spotless and unblemish'd reputation, but will do nothing of this nature without your 

 counsel and assistance.' 



