The Wonderful, New, Hardy, Everbloomine Hybrid Tea Rose, Charles Dineee 



Our Front Cover Page 



Solidity and Sentiment 



A Picture Typical of the Age and Character of This Largest and Oldest Rose-Growing 



Establishment in America 



OUR front cover design, reproduced 

 from a photograph taken by the writer, 

 has such a deep, allegorical significance 

 that its use as the frontispiece of this, the 

 catalogue of the oldest mail-order Rose-grow- 

 ing establishment in America, is singularly- 

 appropriate. The building shown in the 

 picture is one of the oldest Friends' Meeting 

 Houses in this country, and is located within 

 a few miles of West Grove, Pennsylvania. 

 'Tis said that the original deed for the 

 ground on which this house stands was given 

 to the "Meeting" by William Penn himself. 

 Part of this venerable edifice was erected 

 long before the Revolutionary War, and has 

 been in constant use ever since. 



The magnificent white-oak tree, forming 

 the central feature of the picture, foresters 

 tell us, is more than five hundred years old — 

 it was standing there when Columbus first 

 landed upon the shores of the then unknown 

 Western Hemisphere, and is to-day one of 

 the finest specimens of this magnificent 

 species in the whole country. Sturdy and 

 staunch it stands, the embodiment of majes- 

 tic strength, still shedding its protecting 

 shade during the torrid heat of the summer 

 sun, and sturdily defying the whipping, 

 biting winds of winter — a study in still life 

 and an inspiration to all who foregather 

 'neath its friendly branches, and who would 



ponder over the mystery of its origin from 

 the tiny acorn — of itself a powerful sermon 

 of which there are so many given us, if we 

 would but understand, by that greatest of all 

 moral teachers — old Mother Nature. 



The figure in the foreground is that of 

 Charles Dingee, who sixty-two years ago 

 founded this business, and who to-day, hale, 

 hearty and active, despite the frosts of almost 

 ninety years, still takes a lively interest in 

 this business, which it is our ambition to 

 carry on as an enduring monument to his 

 fame as the oldest and pioneer Rose-grower 

 of America. 



These three — the old A\eeting House, 

 which has withstood the ravages of time for 

 nearly two centuries; the old tree, which has 

 defied the elements for more than five cen- 

 turies, and every spring breaks out in the 

 full vigor of a perennial youth; and Charles 

 Dingee, whose name has been, for so many 

 years, the synonym of all that is best in the 

 flowers to which he devoted so many useful 

 years in their propagation, form a combina- 

 tion typical of the solidity of this greatest of 

 all Rose-growing establishments. The picture 

 appealed to us with the great meaning it con- 

 veyed, and we feel that we can be pardoned 

 for the bit of sentiment which impelled us 

 to use it as a cover design for our 1912 book 

 «if "Dingee Roses." 



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