LETTER v. 



TARIED COLOUHS OP THE ROSE — ITS PROGRESS FROM A WILD FLOWER, OR 

 EGLAKTINE, TO ITS PRESENT FERFECTIOK — THE CETONIA, THE ENEMY OF THE 

 ROSE — THE APHIS ROSS — EXTRAORDINARY FECUNDITY OF AN APHIS — THS 



LADT-BIRD NATURE'S PROVISION TO PRESERVE A BALANCE — THE GENERATIVE 



' PRINCIPLE IN FLOWERS — GRAFTED ROSE. 



£ WAS very near passing by this rose-tree : I am passionately 

 fond of roses, but I don't like to talk about them. The poor 

 roses have been so abused ! The Greeks said five or six pretty 

 things about them; the Latins translated these, and added to 

 them three or foiir of their own. From that time, the poets 

 of all countries and all ages have translated, copied, and 

 imitated that which the Greeks and Latins said, without at 

 all heightening our love of the flower by any fresh colouring. 

 They have even continued to call the month of May the 

 month of Roses, without reflecting that roses blossom earlier 

 iu Greece and Italy than in oar lands, where almost all roses 

 wait for the suns of June to expand their beauties. 



Are you not wearied, as I am, with the eternal loves of the 

 butterfly and the rose; loves, by-the-bye, which have no 

 existence? Butterflies light upon roses as upon other flowers, 



