78 



PARSONS O^^" THE KOSE. 



China or Tea Roses, others high, and with the large, ro- 

 bust branches of the La Reine, and other Perpetuals, and 

 others, again, planted with some delicate climbing roses, 

 whose branches, falling down, would form a weeping tree 

 of a most unique, graceful, and showy character. The 

 j)ipes could be made of earthenware, tin, or wood, and be 

 painted in imitation of the bark of a tree. Still better 

 would be the trunk of a small tree, hollowed out for the 

 purpose, which, with the bai*k on, would puzzle many a 

 close observer, and Avhich could show a luxuriant head of 

 leaves and flowers on the most sterile soil that ever formed 

 a lawn. 



From what has been said on the culture of roses among 

 the Moors in Spain, there can be no doubt that they had 

 made great progress therein ; and with the exception of a 

 few statements, evidently unfounded in fact, as the graft- 

 ing of the Rose on the almond, the apple, the jujube, and 

 other trees, the little treatise translated by De la Xeuville 

 certainly contains most excellent remarks upon the culture 

 of roses, whether we eomi)Sire them with what the an- 

 cients have left us, or even with those of the various 

 writers on Rose culture in Europe and America within 

 the last half century. 



As roses were so frequently propagated from the seed 

 by the Moors, they must have known quite a number of 

 varieties, exclusive of all those they had brought or ob- 

 tained from the East. The Yellow Rose, unknown to us 

 until recently, was apparently familiar to them ; and the 

 Blue Rose, of which their manuscripts speak, is now ex- 

 tinct, if it indeed ever existed ; for amid the infinite 

 variety of roses, of every color and shade, j^roduced from 

 seed in modern times, no one has yet obtained a purely 

 Blue Rose, and its former existence may well seem to us 

 incredible. 



Besides the Moorish cultivation in Spain, the Rose has 

 been an object of culture to a great extent in other coun- 



