16 SPECIES AND VARIETIES. 



In contemplating some of the best Roses from the various families, 

 we cannot help admitting, that, compared with the old and still valued 

 varieties, more than two-thirds even of our selections are not so good 

 in character. The love of novelty is all-powerful ; a shade of color, 

 the slightest difference in habit, a different season of bloom, an alter- 

 ation in the size or color of the foliage, the distinction between a slow 

 and a fast growth, have always been considered sufficient by sellers to 

 warrant a new name and a place in the catalogues ; and the Rose, 

 unlike all other flowers, began with better varieties than hundreds of 

 their successors, or rather their younger rivals, proved to be. 



Notwithstanding many of the early Roses were really beautiful, 

 and hardly admitted of much improvement, we had, at a very early 

 period of the fancy, such Roses as the Tuscan, the Cabbage, the Cab- 

 bage Moss, the Maiden's Blush, White Provence, and Double Yellow. 

 These have, it is true, been succeeded by a few worthy of ranking 

 with them, but they have to be selected from thousands infinitely 

 worse, and hundreds which ought not, for the raiser's honesty, or the 

 buyer's good sense, to have even passed the seed bed. If, therefore, 

 we were to select, to lessen our readers' difficulty in choosing, we 

 could not recommend them as Roses equal to old favorites ; for not 

 one in fifty would beat the few we have mentioned, and which ought 

 to be the first they furnish. 



Th.e Provence Rose. 



The Provence Rose, or, as it has been called, the Hundred-leaved 

 Rose, is a distinguishing title for every Rose that has a remarkably 

 double flower, unless there is something in the habit or character that 

 claims for it another title. If this were understood, we should know 

 what we are about. The Moss Rose would clearly come under this, 

 were it not for the moss; for the old Cabbage Rose, and the Moss 

 Rose strongly grown, would not be known from each other, except for 

 the Moss; and the Moss Rose would be a Moss Rose, if ever so single, 

 though its original were double and fine. Now, the Provences, of 

 which the old Cabbage Rose is a sort of type, and generally called the 

 Hundred-leaved Rose, ceases to deserve this name, if semi-double. So 

 that although the origin of the family is rightly named, many pushed 

 Vnto the same list da no* deserve the name. 



