This accomplishment satisfied my rose appetite for about two 
years, when I began losing interst. The new offerings each season 
Were not so very different from those I already had; there appea ed 
to be “no new rose worlds to conquer.’” Two events were to have 
considerable influence on my hobby and my life,—I read the tiny , 
advertisement of the Lester Rose Gardens in the Los Angeles 
Times, and I saw Specie Roses, Gallicas, Centifolias, Damasks, 
Teas: Briers, Rugosas, Musks, with all their variation of bloom- 
type and foliage. growing in the fields of John van Barneveld, : 
Puente, California. 
It is not my purpose to clutter this catalog with personal his- 
tory or to urge any gardener to dig up his modern roses to plant 
the old-fashioned kind. But to those of you whose interest has 
grown somewhat jaded, and to whom just another new rose has — 
little appeal, I cite my own experience as an example of the pleas- 
ure which may be in store for you, when your hobby expands to 
include a collection, or at least a planting from the many diverse - 
and still very beautiful roses of the past. To those, also, whose 
roses must weather the ravages of severe winters, ‘certainly the 
superior hardiness of most old varieties should havea great appeal. 
Special mention is due our collection of Tea Roses, listed alpha- 
betically in this division of the catalog for the first time. Here in 
old Brown Valley rose gardens, are many enormous plants, prob- 
ably fifty or more years old, on which literally thousands of be ca u- 
tiful, fragrant blooms keep coming from early spring to winter. 
Not for zero climates, but wonderful for California and the mild 
South. They are the parents of the hybrid teas, from which he 
latest moderns derived their form and recurrent blooming habit. 
The great English rosarian, William Paul, writing in 1903, sings 
their praises,—*" Someone has called the Tea Roses the elite of the rose 
garden. And tf elegance of form, with tints and odours rare as they are del: - 
cate, entitle them to this distinction, it was a happy thought for they pos- 
sess these in a remarkable degree. There is a sprightliness of oe 
careless grace of plant and flower, that 1s without parallel among the m 
distinguished of other groups.’ 
The case for the old-fashioned roses has been so well stated by 
Mr. Montague Free, we take the liberty of quoting him as fok 
lows,— ‘No flower has been so greatly favored by mankind 
throughout the ages as the Rose, nor known in so many forms, 
nor grown for so many reasons. . . . Yet no comparable plant h as 
been so high-pressured into a few narrow channels ,—Hybrid Teas, AS. 
Climbers and Polyanthas, now differing chiefly in growth habit 
from which the choices of most gardeners are made. If the older 
rose forms were all inferior or unavailable, there might besa nu 
reason for this, but they are not... . I address to lovers of the OS 
a plea fora broadening of the rose horizon.”’ 
s : 
