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31718 Que.1918

nh

126.5

P25

1847

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by

S. B. PARSONS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.

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PREFACE.

THE Commencement and partial preparation of this work assisted to beguile the tedium of a winter's residence from home, where even Orange and Magnolia groves, with the luxuriant vegetation of a semitropical region, could scarcely dispel the ennui attending a life of idleness. Our especial object has been to throw around the culture of the Rose a halo of pleasant thoughts and associations; and while to the mere cultivator there may seem much irrelevant matter of history, poetry, and the like, we think that it will not thus seem to all. For the classical scholar, the early history of the Rose, and its connection with the manners and customs of the two great nations of a former age, will impart to it no slight interest; while the various poetic effusions, which we have endeavored to string together in a multifarious garland, will clothe our favorite flower with additional charms in the eyes of many, and render it perhaps more attractive with the gentler sex, to whom pre-eminently belong the culture and the care of flowers.

For many interesting facts in the History and Culture of the Rose, we are indebted to Deslongchamps, Vibert, Laffay, and several anonymous writers. To the former we wish most fully to express our obligations, both for the plan of this work and for many interesting facts and researches, to which we cannot conveniently attach his name in the body of the work.

Upon the classification we have bestowed much thought, and although we do not feel quite satisfied with the system we have adopted, it is the best that occurs to us in the present condition of rose culture. The amateur will, we think, find the labor of selection much diminished by the increased simplicity of the mode we have adopted, while the commercial gardener will in nowise be injured by the change.

In directions for culture, we give the results of our own experience, and have not hesitated to avail ourselves of any satisfactory results in the experience of others, which might enhance the utility of the work.

The colored engravings were drawn from nature, by one of the best Parisian artists, and are deemed correct portraits.

While we do not claim exemption from hyper criticism in any form, we readily express our willingness to be ever open to conviction, in a field where, among the varied results of experiment and skill, there is much room for difference of opinion.

For our labor we shall feel abundantly compensated, if the publication of this work shall in any way tend to produce a more general admiration and increased culture of the most beautiful denizen of the floral kingdom. S. B. P.

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