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A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



The names of the Roses which are more specially 

 adapted for exhibition, from their exquisite propor- 

 tions and lovely tints, from contour and complexion 

 too, are given in the Appendix, page 283. It has 

 been commended by a Committee of the National 

 Rose Society, and it presents to us the careful and 

 unanimous verdict of the most successful Rosarians of 

 our day. 



Happy art thou, my young disciple, to have before 

 thee, for thy worshipful homage and perpetual 

 delectation, all these lovely Roses ! But two or 

 three of them were in existence when I first began to 

 cultivate the Royal flower. 



' Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, 



One who dwelleth by his castled Rhine, 

 When he called his flowers, all blue and golden. 

 Stars, which on earth's firmament do shine.' 



But these stars, when I commenced my floral 

 astronomy, were few and far between, and would 

 have paled their ineffectual fire before those which 

 have since been discovered. Monsieur Laffay had 

 sent us from Paris a few Hybrid Perpetuals, the best 

 of which were (of course) Madame Laffay, William 

 Jesse, etc., and these were so charmingly described by 

 my first Rosemaster and dear friend, Thomas Rivers, 

 author of * The Rose Amateurs' Guide,' that we 

 regarded them as out of the range of rivalry— What 



