A BOOK OF THE ROSE. 
S3 
fraction. The number has been all but doubled. It has grown from forty to 
seventy-eight, and the cost now trembles on the verge of 1 00,000 a year — an 
increase of less than ^d. in the pound for the whole six years. 
“ But mere figures can give no idea of the Council’s work in the parks. 
Even the Metropolitan Board may put something to its credit on this account. It 
started with one park — namely, Finsbury — which, under its rule, was the most 
dismal in London. The number grew inevitably, but many priceless “beauty 
spots” were swallowed up by the builder, and the spaces that were retained were 
not adequately cared for. Games were played upon them, but tbe cricket pitches 
and football grounds were ill-kept, and were allotted under no proper system. 
Little was done in the way of landscape gardening, and small personal thought 
was given to the task of organising the brief leisure hours of the workers lives. 
“ What a change to-day ! From Hampstead to Dulwich, from Hackney to 
Clapham, you have a stretch of lovely playgrounds, set with every kind of 
pleasurable device in grass and water and flowers and trees. In Bostal Woods 
there is a stretch of pine wood as fine as you can discover at Bournemouth or the 
Black Forest, and the spot has grown to be a favourite one for the cockney picnic. 
You have Waterlow Park, which, thanks especially to Mr. Dickinson and the 
earlier labours of the Parks Committee, is — clothed in its summer dress — a vision 
of woodland seclusion and garden loveliness. You have Hackney Marshes, 
destined to become, perhaps, the finest cricket-ground in London, and, if the 
Council choose to make it so, a rival even of the world-famous Oval. You have 
seen a dangerous plague-spot like Victoria Park Cemetery, where the Council 
found the coffins sticking out of the rank grass, turned into a pretty recreation 
ground. You have six acres snatched from the builder in a densely crowded 
district, and re-made into Bethnal Green Gardens. You have Shoreditch with a 
population of, perhaps, 60,000 souls, dowered with its one open space. You 
have the old English garden at Brockwell Park, and you have a new source of 
delight to the children of the East-end in the deer that grace the enclosures at 
Clissold and Victoria Parks.” 
Since this summary was written the Council has opened a 
new recreation g;round in Tottenham Court Road, as well as 
Lincoln's Inn Fields. We have reason to believe that the 
unsatisfactory state of the Embankment Gardens, to which we 
have more than once referred in these pages, will be remedied 
in time for the coming summer. 
A BOOK OF THE ROSE. 
The Book of the Rose — such is the title of a well-printed, well-bound volume, 
of some 340 pages, from the pen of the Rev. A. Forsier-Melliar, published 
by Messrs. Macmillan & Co. (price 8s. 6d. net). The subject is, perhaps, too 
distinctly horticultural for treatment in Nature Notes with that fulness which, 
on the one hand, such a book deserves in its proper literary channel ; but on the 
other hand is one which comes appropriately before the nature lover. 
The wild roses of the country lane and the woodland hedge, those of the 
pretty pink chalice, or of the dainty cup of ivory and gold — these are what all 
lovers of natural beauty prize. Canhia and Arvensis have each their charms, 
they are parts of the day-dreams which come to us in the train of the delights 
of the sleepy noon of the summer sunshine. Yet it is safe to assume that we 
are all sufficiently imbued with the spirit of the garden and its glory to have 
a strong liking for “ the queen of flowers,” as the garden rose, by an almost 
common consent, has been allowed to be called. To the eye of the discerning 
there is a presentation of perfectly moulded form, wedded to a richness of colour 
glory, peculiar to this long line of court favourites. 
Thus contemplating and contrasting the simplicity and splendour of the 
