EOSES AND JASMINES. 



63 



CHAPTER VI. 



ROSES AND JASMINES. 



HESE most delicious, most elegant flowers — in themselves 

 a garden — are worthy of a chapter devoted exclusively 

 to their culture. What cottage exists without its roses 

 twined around the doorway, or blooming up its pathway ? 

 What is sentiment without its roses ? What other flower illus- 

 trates the beauty and excellence of a loved one ? — 



" Oh ! my love is like the red, red rose, 

 That sweetly blows in June.*' 



Every gentle feeling, every exquisite thought, every delicate 

 allusion, is embodied in the rose. It is absurd to say the rose by 

 any other name " would smell as sweet." It is not so. Poetry, 

 painting, and music, have deified the rose. Call it " nettle," and 

 we should cast it from our hands in disgust. 



There are innumerable varieties of roses, from the cottage rose 

 to the fairy rose, whose buds are scarcely so large as the bells of 

 the lily of the valley. Mrs. Gore mentions some hundreds of 

 sorts, but such a catalogue is too mighty to insert in my little 

 work. I will name only the well-known hardy kinds, and refer 

 my reader to Mrs. Gore herself for the complete collection. Seed 

 yields such inexhaustible varieties, that a new list will be required 

 every ten years. 



The Damask rose is very useful from its properties, as well as 

 its beauty and hardihood. Rose-water is distilled from this 

 bright thickly-blowing flower 



