CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 187 



been knowm to the ancients, and is mentioned not only by Pliny, 

 Claudian, and Theophrastus, but also by Ebu-Alwan, in a 

 work on agriculture written originally in Chaldaic ; yet it does 

 not seem to have been generally admitted by botanists, until an- 

 nounced by Linnaeus in 1731. From this time the possibility of 

 the existence of hybrid plants was admitted, and Linnaeus, with 

 many subsequent authors, published observations tending to 

 prove that, even in the natural state, new species were formed 

 by two different plants, the pistil of one having been fecundated 

 by the stamens of the other. This impregnation has been arti- 

 ficially applied, by modern cultivators, to the production of new 

 varieties of fruits and flowers. With the Geranium, Fuchsia, 

 Paeony, Pansy, and other flowers, it has produced remarkable 

 results. The mode of impregnating the Rose artificially has been 

 so little practised with us, and has been so well described by 

 Rivers, that we prefer detailing the process in his own words : 



" When it is desirable the qualities of a favorite rose should 

 preponderate, the petals of the flower to be fertilized must be 

 opened gently with the fingers. A flower that will expand in 

 the morning, should be opened the afternoon or evening previous, 

 and the anthers all removed with a pair of pointed scissors. The 

 following morning, when this flower is fully expanded, it must 

 be fertilized with a flower of some variety of whose qualities it is 

 desired to have seedlings largely partake. It requires some 

 watchfulness to open the petals at the proper time; if too 

 soon, the petals will be injured in forcing them open; and in hot 

 weather, in July, if delayed only an hour or two, the anthers 

 will be found to have shed their pollen. To ascertain precisely 

 when the pollen is in a fit state for transmission, a few of the 

 anthers should be gently pressed with the finger and thumb ; if 

 the yellow dust adheres to them, the operation may be performed ; 

 it requires close examination and some practice to know when 

 the flower to be operated upon is in a fit state to receive the pol- 

 len ; as a general rule, the flowers ought to be in the same state 

 of expansion, or, in other words, about the same age. 



To exemplify the process, we will suppose that a climbing 



