790 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



mellowed by the frost : this was done by removing the seeds and chaffy bristles 

 which line the inside of the hip, and afterwards beating the pulpy matter up in 

 a mortar with sugar. The mossy protuberance frequently seen on the wild 

 rose and the sweet briar was also formerly used in medicine; but it is now 

 neglected. It is produced by the puncture of the Cynips rosae, and other 

 kindred species of insects; and, among druggists, was known by the Arabic 

 name of bedeguar. 



For culinary and confectionery Purposes, rose-water is in much demand. 

 Very good tarts are also made, on the Continent, of the conserve of the hips, 

 as well as of the conserve of the petals ; and rose-buds are preserved in sugar, 

 and pickled in vinegar. The apple-bearing rose (i?6sa villosa pomifera) 

 produces the largest fruit of all, and is the best adapted for preserving; but 

 R. systyla and R. arvensis are said by Mr. Joseph Woods (Lin. Trans.) to 

 produce fruit, which, though of a smaller size, is of a higher flavour than that 

 of any other species. (Ilort. Soc. Cat. of Fruits, edit. 1826, p. 195.) The 

 employment of the rose in the manufacture of liqueurs has been already 

 mentioned. The green leaves of the sweet briar are sometimes, on the 

 Continent, steeped in spirits of wine, to communicate to it a fragrance ; and 

 they are commonly used, in England, to put into cowslip wine, to give it a 

 flavour. Tea has been also made of these leaves; and those of all the sorts, 

 as well as the young tender shoots, are readily eaten by cattle, horses, and 

 sheep. The points of the luxuriant shoots of sweet briar, deprived of their 

 bark and leaves, and cut into short lengths, are sometimes candied like the 

 blanched leaf-stalks of angelica and finocchio. 



The Wood of the Rose is very hard and compact, and of a fine grain ; and, if 

 it could be procured of sufficient dimensions, it might serve as a substitute for 

 box, in making mathematical instruments. 



Hedges are formed both of the wild and of the cultivated rose; but they 

 are not well adapted for the purposes of protection and enclosure, from their 

 rambling habit of growth, the large space they occupy when unpruned, and 

 their liability to become naked below when cut in on both sides, so as to 

 occupy only the space allowed to a hedge of hawthorn. For garden hedges, 

 however, many of the varieties are eligible, and more especially the fasti- 

 giate-growing kinds ; such as the Rosa indica, which, in warm sheltered 

 situations, forms a very handsome evergreen hedge, flowering nearly all the 

 year. 



Undergrowths of Roses. Many of the climbing and trailing sorts, and par- 

 ticularly the evergreen varieties of these, are well adapted, as Mr. Rivers has 

 observed (p. 781.), for undergrowths in open woods ; but, in this case, the 

 timber trees should not be so close as to touch each other with their branches, 

 and, consequently, to exclude the direct rays of the sun from the roses. 

 These, also, should be allowed, in some places, to climb to the tops of the 

 highest trees, where they will flower profusely, and, in a few years, hang 

 down ; occasionally forming festoons from one tree to another in a man- 

 ner .singularly beautiful and picturesque. The different varieties of i?6sa 

 arvensis, especially the Ayrshire and evergreen roses, are particularly well 

 adapted for this purpose. We have seen fine examples of the effect of 

 climbing roses, produced in some neglected parts of the woods at Eastwell 

 Park, Psoas Hill, Claremont, and more particularly at Pepperharrow. At 

 Spring Grove, the late Sir Joseph Banks had a Siberian variety of the Rosa 

 arvensis, which produced a singularly rich and beautiful effect on a group of 

 tall trees near the house. Mr. Beckford of Fonthill formed, about 1804, 

 in his woods, several acres of undergrowths of roses of the very choicest 

 kinds ; and the effect was extraordinary (though it could not be called appro- 

 priate), while care was bestowed upon them; but, no sooner was the place 

 quitted by Mr. Beckford, in 1826, and the plantation neglected, than they 

 began to be choked up by brambles, and other plants sown by the birds, and 

 to die off, till, when we visited the scene in 1833, we could not observe a 

 single rose remaining. (See Gurd. Mag., vol. xi. p. 441.) 



