I am a copywriter. A copywriter is a person who 

 writes on this, that or the other subject for pay, 

 much as the Grub Street hacks did in good, old 

 18th Century England. I like being a copywriter — 

 especially because roses are my subject, mostly. 

 However — I suffer from the same affliction as 

 the stout lady who marches jauntily into the 

 Kandy Kitchen and orders, as she perches pre- 

 cariously on an insufficient stool, "a double 

 banana split and don't spare the whipped cream." 

 The malady is plainly an embarrassment of riches. 

 None-the-less, both the lady in question, and I 

 plunge into our diverse endeavors with the hope 

 that the end ^^^ll be as pleasant as the means. 



when describing roses when, like you, I am a 

 creature of enthusiasms.^ Imagine the awful spot 

 I find myself in while laboring to give you the 

 truth of the matterl I set out on a fine, sparkling 

 June morning to write descriptions of new roses. 

 The rose fields are at their glorious best — row on 

 row of magnificent roses — a sea of colors to swim 

 in — reds, yellows, pinks, whites all catching the 

 morning sun. Clutching my pad and pencil, my 

 ruler, my Horticultural Color Chart, I head for 

 row 22 in section 904, looking for rose #Z416-Q2, 

 the new rose which will be in my next catalog. 

 Then I find it! 



^K emC^/tn^4^^KCKt (^ %cc4^4^ 



bv JoHX Milton 



In the rose fields in June, it is not possible for 

 anyone to be unhappy or pessimistic or mean . . 

 even me. My heart leaps with pleasure; excite- 

 ment of the moment crowds out everything else. 

 And #Z416-Q2.» How utterly magnificent it isi 

 How the people will like this one! I get to work 

 feverishly. It's 6 inches across! (I measure it 

 with^ a ruler.) It easily has 50 petals! (Using 

 the "she loves me — she loves me not" technique, 

 I take the bloom from its stem and tear off the 

 petals, not without reverence.) Actual count: 

 55! I study the form of bush, bud and bloom and 

 make notes. Finally, I settle down with the color 

 chart in the search to pinpoint the exact shade of 

 this new beauty. Is it Flame Scarlet #9, Grenadine 

 #7, Mandarin, Vermilion, Scarlet #3, Spectrum 

 Red #1, Carmine, Rose Red #71. ^ To my eye. 

 Scarlet #3, shade 19 is the right color. I note that 

 this color in Dutch is Scharlakenrood; in French, 

 Ecarlate; in German, Scharlachrot; in Italian. 

 Scarlatto; in Latin, Scarlatinus; in Spanish, 

 Escarlata. But I know that in good, old under- 

 standable American, it is best described as FIRE- 

 ENGINE RED! 



To write with enthusiasm about the new rose is 

 natural and easy for this catalog wTiter because I 

 have been infected by its beauty, £md want others 

 to know about itjUjg^But I have an embarrass- 

 ment of ricbu^^ iJL^ar'my catalog lists 99 other 

 rose miTsoQw Miles each of which deservas fair 

 , . , .,,«.. tr^k*i%«t,' also. I recall when each of them was 



resort to a somewhat inexact but still effective ^^-^^to me, and what effect it had on me when 

 device. I call my red^ rose orangey-red ^^^^^^st seen in the field. I thought then that each 



^J' was a beautiful ornament of nature. I wonder 

 now whether that ornament once so bright is 

 tarnished by time, and is to be eclipsed by the 

 newcomer. I am not altogether astonished to find 

 that the beautiful rose of yesteryear is just as 



Let us leave the lady now as she tackles her special 

 problem, and let me try to tell you how and why it 

 is that when I write a rose catalog I find myself 

 on the horns of a dilemma (thLs might, I think, be 

 better expressed, considering the subject matter, 

 as the "thorns of a dilemma"). My purpose is, 

 of course, to tell the truth about the roses I am 

 concerned with so that you, the home gardener, 

 can choose those you wish to buy. My problem, 

 on the other hand, is how to accomplish this when 

 so many of the terms of my trade mean different 

 things to different people, and when every rose 

 I deal with has its own claim to beauty. 



For instance, if I say, "The rose is a big, beauti- 

 ful, red Hybrid Tea," you can be sure of only one 

 thing, and that is that I am talking about a Hy- 

 brid Tea rose. My use of the words "big," "beau- 

 tiful" and "red" are all subject to your own inter- 

 pretation. Bigness is relative; beauty, as they say, 

 is "in the eye of the beholder"; the color, red, has 

 how many shades? Dozens? Hundreds? If, in 

 my case, I were to try to be more specific by 

 saying that the rose is a "saturn red" (this being 

 a technical description of a certain red as shown in 

 my Horticultural Color Chart) you, on actually- 

 seeing the red rose in question, would say, "It 

 isn't red at all! He's nuts! It's orange!" 



In order then to be clear in my meaning, I, the 

 poor — but — honest rose catalog writer, have to 



fire-engine red" or traffic-light red l)ecaus^^ 



r reador^^/^jlHTnow' 

 what I am talking about. The twfw^ii- of Hns 

 orangey-red rose is, of course, "^ii^ai^ijm^*^!" — 

 an unhappy connotation in tht'^^iiMViTls yr many, 

 unless the s[)iriach rel'erredy tiu'\\\\\^\jri\<. to Ix^ 

 creamed or au gratin. TI\/^,^j^Le.ruiri\(' to this 

 word-association kind of -^j^ilor >K's(Ti[)tion, al- 

 though manifestly an inuV^^twiWe one, is to send 

 along witli each cala|^^^a^)rnplet(; set of Horti 

 cultural f'olor Chartsjso me reader can 1( 

 his own colors. J * 



«>' ^ 



Anollier troubje-s'polTor 

 (unwittingly) by jone oC I he R^ngli 

 "She liked wha^e'er she IAf)k(?( 

 lm)ks went cverj^jjhye.J^'^^I 



look up 



I)uf into words 



Ih |)oets who said, 



upon. And her 



ui I be objective 



lovely today. A new look at them in the fields 

 and gardens renews my memory of their fine points 

 and sends me to my typewriter re-charged with the 

 spark of enthusiasm. 



Thus, I lay before you the idea of a rose as T see 

 it and as I hope you will see it. I do what I can 

 within the limits of my pages to give you a true 

 picture, sometimes apologizing for inaccurate 

 colors in the engravings, and always wishing that 

 I <()uld take you to the fields and gardens to point 

 out each and every rose in person. 



