able these roses are, when it is stated that, by retarding and forcing, they may be made to bloom for eight months in the year.

Perpetual Damask Roses do not bear seed in this country freely; but Mogador may be planted near and fertilised with the Common Bourbon. An attempt to obtain a mossy Crimson Perpetual might be made by planting and fertilising the Crimson Perpetual with the Single Crimson Moss. In the cultivation of roses and many other gardening operations, we must never really despair.

THE HYBRID PERPETUAL ROSE.

(Rosier Hybride Remontante.)

THIS class now surpasses all others in beautiful roses. In p. 29 is given the origin of Hybrid China Roses, which, it is well known, bloom but once in the season. Some of these hybrids or mules, unlike many plants of the same description, bear seed freely. These fertile varieties have been crossed with different varieties of China and Bourbon Roses. From seed thus produced we have gained a new race of autumnal roses, bearing abundance of flowers during the whole of the summer and autumn, and now called Hybrid Perpetuals. Certainly a more beautiful and interesting class of roses does not exist; their flowers

are large, very double, most fragrant, and produced till the end of October. Their habit is robust and vigorous in a remarkable degree; and, above all, they are perfectly hardy, and will grow well in any climate in Great Britain, however far north; but caution will be required in selecting varieties for cold and damp localities, as those only that open their flowers freely should be planted. Some that are fine roses in a dry southern climate, and also when forced, in a moist climate, will seldom or never open their flowers.

So many fine varieties are now (1866) in cultivation, that sorts adapted to all climates may be selected; and so magnificent are many of the new roses in this family, that it appears to me in a few years they will supersede all others, except a few Bourbon and Tea-scented Roses, which have characters very distinct and interesting.

The esteem these roses are now held in has led, as usual, to abuse. We are overburthened with varieties. Some cultivators enumerate nearly 300, divided into groups, having affinities and characteristics.' These groups only tend to confuse the amateur, and are really of no use and no guide; for what resemblance in habit-the great point for the amateur-has Géant des Batailles or Gloire de Rosomêne with Pauline Bonaparte and Ernestine de Barante? They cannot be planted in the same group with propriety. The

French cultivators have carried this division into 'groups' to excess; but it appears to me, and this has always been my opinion, that we cannot simplify enough the classification of roses. One division, headed Hybrid Perpetual Roses, ought to include all from their origin deserving that name; and those that diverge from the general characters of the family, in being very dwarf or otherwise very different, may have their characters attached to their names.

I can only give here the names of a few of the most choice in this class; and those described, whether old or new varieties, may be depended upon as admissible into the choicest collections. I shall describe them in groups according to the colours of their flowers, commencing with those with

DARK CRIMSON.

There are, comparatively, but few varieties of this class of colour; I mean, with those dark velvety petals so common among the French Roses and Hybrid Chinas, and with flowers full and perfect in shape. It has always been a curious fact in rose culture, that dark, almost black, roses have 'either been semi-double or ill-shapen, so that it is only within very recent times we have received varieties with flowers large, full, and tolerably shaped; still, we ought not to give up

the culture of Empereur de Maroc: its flowers are very double-not large-and its petals slightly reflexed. It forms a pillar rose of much beautyits flowers are so rich and deep in their colouring. Prairie de Terre Noire, André Leroy, Xavier Olibo, Amiral Gravina, Eugene Verdier, Deuil de Prince Albert, Souvenir de William Wood, and Black Prince, are dark roses shaded with purple; their flowers are full sized, and very double and effective.

CRIMSON.

There are many shades of this colour in the roses of this family, depending for their brilliancy much upon climate, season, and situation. Among the most brilliant is the well-known Géant des Batailles, the most bright and brilliant of all roses, and at the same time one of the most hardy and free-growing. No rose, of late years, has been, or is, so popular. As an instance of this I may mention that, in the autumn of 1849, 8000 standards and dwarfs of this variety were dispersed over the whole face of the country from this place.

This beautiful and favourite rose is now the parent of a numerous family, every member of which, when first ushered into the rose world, has been pronounced more beautiful than its far

famed parent; after a time, however, most of these promising children have settled down into esteemed members of the Géant family, but have not totally eclipsed their parent.

In enumerating the fine roses of this range of colour one is almost bewildered, so numerous are they. It would seem, when one sees a fine flower of Sénateur Vaise just on the point of expanding, that no rose, or indeed no flower, can be more brilliant, more beautiful; yet I have sometimes bent over Gloire de Santenay, and thought it still more so: the flowers of both are so perfect in shape, so brilliant, and so exceedingly beautiful. Charles Lefebvre, François Lacharme, Alphonse Damaizin, Duc de Rohan, Duc de Cazes, Maurice Bernardin, Professor Koch, Madame Julie Daran, Olivier Delhomme, Souvenir de Comte Cavour, La Brillante, Alfred Colomb, Duke of Wellington, Le Rhône, Lord Macaulay, and Lord Clyde, form a perfect galaxy of rose beauty. I cannot see the possibility of surpassing the above by new varieties, and yet they come, or pretend to come, every season from France. This spring some fine new varieties are ushered into the rose-world of England, and some thousands of francs have been sent over to our neighbours in exchange for a host of new names, to be added to the rose catalogues of the day, so as to perplex both buyers and sellers. This incessant introduction of novelties without novelty is, I