NEW GUIDE TO ROSE CULTURE. 1 1 



made for visitors, so that all may come with the certainty of being comfortably- 

 provided for in every respect. 



At this writing it does not look probable that we will be able to show our Roses 

 at the great exhibition. So shall have to content ourselves with exhibiting to 

 each of our customers who orders, as good or better Roses than we have ever 

 before sent out ; or, in other words, as fine as can be grown. 



The Action of Congress last year, in suddenly doubling the rate of 

 Postage on our mail packages and catalogues after arrangements for the season 

 were all made, caused us a large and unexpected increase in expenses, which 

 our business was illy able to bear. No redress could however be had, and we 

 believe our customers will bear witness that we have filled all our promises with 

 liberality and promptness. We are hopeful that the present Congress may at 

 least restore the old rate of one cent for each two ounces on all mail matter of 

 the third class, which includes Books, Seeds, Cuttings, Plants, «&c., but the 

 result is yet very uncertain. The beneficent policy of cheap postage on written 

 and printed matter, and of allowing the mails to carry small packages at low 

 rates, commends itself with peculiar force to the American people who are 

 socially so closely united, but yet so widely scattered. 



We Trust our friends will like the style and appearance of '' The New 

 Guide.'' We have endeavored to make it pleasant and attractive. As it is now 

 a regular yearly publication, it is mailed in bulk at publishers' rates ; the fact of 

 it being in the mails, is evidence that postage has been collected in advance. 

 A stamp on each one is no longer necessary. 



The Post Office Department is entitled to great commendation 



for the promptness and certainty with which they deliver packages to all Post 

 Offices in the country, even the most distant. In our own experience we do 

 not think that one package in a thousand has failed to reach its destination 

 safely. 



We wish we could say that the mails were as certain to bring the letters of 

 our customers to us as they are to deliver the packages we send. Unfortu- 

 nately this is not the case. Among the vast number of Post Office employees, 

 it is not surprising that some should be dishonest — to these, the temptation to 

 steal letters supposed to contain money is too strong to be resisted, and though 

 the mails are hedged around by the Department with all the safeguards that 

 experience and ingenuity can suggest, many letters are actually stolen and of 

 course fail entirely to reach their destination. 



Registered Letters. — It should be said right here that Registered Let- 

 ters are scarcely ever stolen, we do not know that we lost any last year. We 

 have had less trouble with Registered Letters than any other form of remit- 

 tance. 



Post Office Orders. — The thieves can not of course make any use of 

 Post Office Orders or Bank Drafts, but as they can not tell which letters 

 contain these and which money, they take any they can get their hands on — 

 keep the money and destroy the P. O. Orders and Drafts. The money is gone 

 but the P. O. Orders and Drafts are only delayed, as duplicates can be had 

 when properly applied for. Though on an average, not one letter in a hundred 

 is lost, it occasionally happens, singular as it may appear, that several letters 

 are stolen in succession from the same writer. Some time ago we received a. 

 letter which, besides the address, bore the following superscription on its face 



