262 FLOWERS AND BEDDING PLANTS, 
tracted such numbers of admirers and chroniclers of their beauty, 
that, in failing to do justice to them by any observations of our 
own, there is a satisfaction in knowing that scores of their devoted 
admirers have written lovingly and sensibly of them; and from 
their pages, we may glean and present such general information 
concerning the relative rank, characters, and habits of the various 
roses as comes within the scope of a work on the arts of arrange¬ 
ment, rather than a floral manual of classification or culture. 
In all the languages of civilized nations volumes have been 
written on the history, the poetical and legendary associations, the 
classification, and the culture of the rose; so that, whoever desires 
to be especially well informed on any branch of knowledge per¬ 
taining to roses will seek among the books in his own language 
for the special and full information he desires. As roses come 
properly under the head of shrubs, we shall, under that head, 
give so much on the subject as may be necessary in connec¬ 
tion with the embellishment of suburban places, together with a 
plate of designs for rose-beds, of a great variety of sizes and forms, 
with various selections of roses that may be used to advantage in 
filling them. We will only add here what has before been men¬ 
tioned in connection with the subject of arrangement, that the 
planting of rose-bushes, as isolated small shrubs on a lawn, is al¬ 
most always a misplacement. There are a few sorts, especially 
some of the wild bush-roses, which form fine compact bushes, 
sufficiently well foliaged to be pleasing all the summer months 
when not in bloom ; but the greater part of the finest roses, par¬ 
ticularly the perpetuals which make a straggling and unequal 
growth, produce a far finer effect when planted pretty snugly in 
masses. A practice of planting each root of a sort by itself, like 
so many hills of potatoes, is quite necessary in commercial 
gardens where they are grown for sale, and each of a hundred 
varieties must be kept distinct from ever} 7 other, so that it may be 
distinguished readily, and removed for sale without injury to the 
others; but this is market-gardening, not decorative, and the least 
interesting of all modes of cultivating the rose. Decidedly, the 
prettier way in small collections is to learn first what is the com¬ 
parative strength of growth and height of the several plants which 
