The Book of Roses

 IT IS needless to eulogize the Rose. Poets from Anacreon and Sappho, and earlier than they, down to our own times, have sung its praises; and yet the rose of Grecian and of Persian song, the rose of troubadours and minstrels, had no beauties so resplendent as those with which its offspring of the present day embellish our gardens. The "thirty sorts of rose," of which John Parkinson speaks in 1629, have multiplied to thousands. New races have been introduced from China, Persia, Hindostan, and our own country; and these, amalgamated with the older families by the art of the hybridist, have produced still other forms of surpassing variety and beauty. This multiplication and improvement are still in progress.