ROSES AND JASMINES. 
63 
CHAPTER VI. 
ROSES AND JASMINES. 
HESE most delicious, most elegant flowers—in themselves 
a garden—are worthy of a chapter devoted exclusively 
to their culture. What cottage exists without its roses 
twined around the doorway, or blooming up its pathway ? 
What is sentiment without its roses ? W hat other flower illus¬ 
trates the beauty and excellence of a loved one ?—■ 
“ Oh ! my love is like the red, red rose, 
That sweetly blows in June. 7? 
Every gentle feeling, every exquisite thought, every delicate 
allusion, is embodied in the rose. It is absurd to say the rose by 
any other name “ would smell as sweet.” It is not so. Poetry, 
painting, and music, have deified the rose. Call it “ nettle,” and 
we should cast it from our hands in disgust. 
There are innumerable varieties of roses, from the cottage rose 
to the fairy rose, whose buds are scarcely so large as the bells of 
the lily of the valley. Mrs. Gore mentions some hundreds of 
sorts, but such a catalogue is too mighty to insert in my little 
work. I will name only the well-known hardy kinds, and refer 
my reader to Mrs. Gore herself for the complete collection. Seed 
yields such inexhaustible varieties, that a new list will be required 
every ten years. 
The Damask rose is very useful from its properties, as well as 
its beauty and hardihood. Rose-water is distilled from this 
bright, thickly-blowing flower 
