RETROSPECTIVE 3 



carrying everything before it for a time. Where is it now ? Take 

 again a rose of totally different type, Comtesse de Nadaillac, a 

 tremendous winner of " best rose " medals ; it has disappeared. 

 Another, Souvenir d'Elise Vardon. What has become of it ? 

 Yet these three, taken at random from scores, were in everything 

 perfect in bloom, and would, if done well, hold their own to-day, 

 as does that other far older favourite, Marechal Niel. Their defects 

 were not in the bloom, but in some other characteristics of the 

 plant. 



There is one other we must here refer to the oldest and most 

 typical of all, a variety which still lives and will never die out, 

 though it is altogether outclassed. If any rose may be said to be 

 so, it is distinctly and emphatically plebeian, and finds itself most 

 at home adorning the walls of the humble cottage in every English 

 village. No rose is more beloved, nor has fonder associations, 

 and no rose lives more in the minds and memories of countless 

 men and women, who, having left their native home, are scattered 

 over very portion of the wide world. I refer to the old Gloire de 

 Dijon. 



