beegah. The additional expense for cultivation would be about rupees 8.8; so that for rupees 38.8, you have, for the season, one beegah of 1000 Rose-trees.

"If the season is good, this beegah of 1000 Rose-trees should yield one lac of Roses. Purchases of Roses are always made at so much per lac. The price of course varies according to the year, and will average from 40 to 70 rupees.

"The Rose-trees come into flower at the beginning of March, and continue so through April.

"In the morning early the flowers are plucked by numbers of men, women, and children, and are conveyed in large bags to the several contracting parties for distillation. The cultivators themselves very rarely manufacture.

"There is such a variety of Rose-water manufactured, and so much that bears the name which is nothing more than a mixture of sandal-oil, that it is impossible to lay down the plan which is adopted. The best Rose-water, however, may be computed as bearing the proportion of 1000 Roses to a seer* of water: this, perhaps, may be considered as the best procurable. From 1000 Roses most generally a seer and a half of Rose-water is distilled; and perhaps from this even the Attar has been removed.

"To procure the Attar, the Roses are put into the still, and the water passes over gradually, as in the Rose-water process. After the whole has come over, the Rose-water is placed in a large metal basin, which is covered with wetted muslin, tied over to prevent insects or dust getting into it: this vessel is let into the ground about two feet, which has been previously wetted with water, and it is allowed to remain quiet during the whole night. The Attar is always made at the beginning of the season, when the nights are cool: in the morning, early, the little film of Attar, which is formed upon the surface of the Rose-water during the night, is removed by means of a feather, and it is then carefully placed in a small phial; and day after day, as the collection is made, it is placed for a short period in the sun; and after a sufficient quantity has been procured, it is poured off clear, and of the colour of amber, into small phials. Pure Attar, when it has been removed only three or four days, has a pale greenish hue: by keeping, it soon loses this, and in a few weeks' time becomes of a pale yellow.

"From one lac of Roses it is generally calculated that 180 grains, or one tolah,† of Attar can be procured: more than this can be obtained if the Roses are full sized, and the nights cold to allow of the congelation.

"The Attar purchased in the bazaar is generally adulterated, mixed with sandal-oil or sweet-oil. Not even the richest native will give the price at which the purest Attar alone can be obtained; and the purest Attar that is made is sold to Europeans. During the past year it has been selling from 80 to 90 rupees the tolah: the year before it might have been purchased for 50 rupees. "At the commencement of the Rose season, people from all parts come to

* A seer is two pounds troy.

† A tolah is seven pennyweights.

make their purchases; and very large quantities are prepared and sold. There are about thirty-six places in Ghazeepore where Rose-water is distilled.

"The chief use the natives appear to make of the Rose-water is at the period of their festivals and weddings. It is then distributed largely to the guests as they arrive, and sprinkled with profusion in the apartments.

"I should consider that the value of the Roses sold for the manufacture of Rose-water may be estimated at 15,000 rupees a year, and from this to 20,000 ; and from the usual price asked for the Rose-water, and for which it is sold, I should consider there is a profit of 40,000 rupees. The natives are very fond of using the Rose-water as medicine, or as a vehicle for other mixtures; and they consume a good deal of the petals for the Conserve of Roses."

But Roses are grown for the purpose of manufacturing Rose-water in other countries beside Persia. At Provins, a town forty-seven miles S. E. of Paris, which has long been celebrated for its conserve of Roses, the French Rose has been cultivated; and in the environs of Paris, the Damask, and other kinds. In some parts of Surrey and Kent, in our own country, they are grown in considerable quantities-the Provence, Damask, and French kinds, indiscriminately. In the process of distillation, six pounds of Rose-leaves are said to be enough to make a gallon of Rose-water; but much depends on the stage in which the flowers are gathered, the best stage being just before full-blown.

The Rose has been valued in Medicine from the remotest times: it was so in the time of Hippocrates; and the Romans believed the root to be efficacious in cases of hydrophobia: hence probably the term 'DOG-ROSE.' Many writers have attributed to it virtues which it does not possess; though it is still used in medicine, and valued for its tonic and astringent properties. The hips of the Dog-rose, when reduced to pulp, are also used in pharmacy, to give consistence to pills and electuaries.

But to return more immediately to the history of the Rose.-This flower, having been considered as the emblem of innocence and purity from remote times, seems so far to have influenced the early Christian writers, as to induce them to place it in Paradise. It is well known, also, that the seal of the celebrated Luther was a Rose.

In Hungary our flower is held in great esteem. I am informed by a friend who has resided in that country, that it is customary with ladies of rank and fashion to take bouquets of Roses and go into the woods to bud the wild kinds which they may encounter in their rambles. It must be an agreeable and exhilarating task to go in search of Roses during the flowering season; for I am assured it is no uncommon thing to meet with the finest varieties blooming in the most unfrequented places.

In Holland the Rose seems to have made but little way, although it was from that country the most beautiful of the tribe-the Moss Rose-was first introduced to England, from whence it found its way to France. The transactions which took place in Holland during the Florimania associate no unpleasant ideas with

our flower. The Rose was without the pale. The Tulip, the Hyacinth, the Ranunculus, the Anemone-these, with a few of minor importance, were the pride of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: these were the flowers of Holland; and the enthusiasm with which they were cultivated there had rendered them popular in other European countries. Thus the Rose lay neglected. Its capabilities of improvement were not thought of, or unknown. The unlocking of its treasures was reserved for more recent times. The skilful and persevering individuals, to whose labours we are indebted for the choicest ornaments of the Rose Garden, still live to admire the productions of their genius, and to witness their favourite flower reigning without a rival in the Floral world.

Let us turn to France, a country naturally rich in Roses. According to Decandolle, she has no less than nineteen species growing spontaneously in her hedges, woods, and wilds. The chief among them is the ROSA GALLICA, or French Rose, which has produced some of the most brilliant and regularly-formed flowers of the genus.

The country abounding in Roses, we should expect its poets would not fail to notice them; and perhaps in no other language have so many beautiful comparisons been instituted, or so many verses written in their praise. Delille exclaims, "Mais qui peut refuser un hommage à la Rose?" (Who can refuse homage to the Rose?) And Bernard, Malherbe, Saint Victor, Roger, Leonard, and others too numerous to mention, have made it the subject of the most delightful strains.

Rapin, a French writer of the seventeenth century, gives a pleasing and ingenious tale, which I shall venture to insert.

"Rhodanthe, Queen of Corinth, having enamoured several princes with her beauty, and having disdained their proffers of homage, three of them, furious to see themselves despised, besieged her in the temple of Diana, where she had taken refuge, followed by all the people, who, dazzled by her extraordinary beauty, made her assume the place of the statue of the goddess. Apollo, enraged by the indignity offered to his sister, changed Rhodanthe into a tree which bore the Rose. Under this new form Rhodanthe is always queen, for she became the most beautiful of flowers. Her subjects pressed around her, seem still to defend her, metamorphosed, as they are, into prickly thorns. The three princes were changed; the one into a butterfly, and the two others into winged insects, which, constant in their love, flutter without ceasing around their cherished flower." (La Rose, &c., par Dr. Deslongschamps.)

There exists at the present day, in the village of Salency in France, a custom which is of very ancient date. As early as the sixth century, the Bishop of Noyon offered a prize of a crown of Roses, to be given yearly to the maid of the village who should have earned the greatest reputation for modesty and virtue. The villagers have the power of appointing her who shall receive it; and it is awarded with much ceremony and rejoicing.

It is the opinion of some of the French authors on this flower, that Roses were

cultivated far more extensively in France in former times than at present; which they arrive at from the statements made, by earlier authors, of the great quantities which were used on particular occasions. I have sometimes thought it a matter of surprise that the Rose should have taken the precedence of all other flowers in France at an earlier period than here, especially when we consider it is our national emblem, and that to the enterprise of English collectors Europe stands indebted for many species which were sent from this country to France and elsewhere. It was so with the Tea-scented, the Chinese Rose, the Banksiæ, the Microphylla, the Macartney, the Multiflora, and others.

But it was fashion paved the way for its general reception in France. At the commencement of the present century, the Empress Josephine acknowledged it as her favourite, and caused varieties to be collected throughout Europe, and brought to her garden at Malmaison. The late Mr. Kennedy was provided with a passport to go and come as he pleased during the war, in order that he might superintend the formation of that garden. The patronage of the Empress gave an impetus to Rose-culture. Establishments were soon formed, solely for the purpose, among the earliest of which were those of M. Descemet and M. Vibert, and the taste spread throughout Europe. It has been said that the collection of the former at St. Denis was destroyed by the English troops in 1815, but I believe they were removed to a distant part on the approach of the allied troops.

Monsieur Vibert, of whom we have just spoken, is one of the most celebrated cultivators among the French. He founded his establishment in the vicinity of Paris in 1815, at which time the only Moss Rose known in France was the red, or common one. He removed, a few years since, to Angers, where the climate is more favourable for the pursuance of that science to which he is entirely devoted. To him we owe the existence of those old favourites, Fanny Bias, Célestine, Ipsilanti, Aimée Vibert, Cynthie, d'Aguesseau, Matthieu Molé, Julie d'Etangés, Nelly, Blanchefleur, Cleopatra, La Ville de Londres, and a host of striped and spotted Roses. It is worthy of remark, that the latter, though much admired and cultivated in France, have never gained any great popularity here.

Among his more modern varieties, he enumerates Yolande d'Aragon, Princesse Clémentine, Eugène Duboys Dessauzais, Pluto, Feu Brillante, Columelle, Eliza Mercœur, Comtesse Murinais, Alice Leroi, Semiramis, la Négresse, and numerous others of which the merit is doubtful, or to which sufficient time has not been given to prove their various properties.

M. Laffay, another distinguished cultivator, owns a list of names no less worthy. Who, even among modern Rose cultivators, is not familiar with Archduc Charles, Fabvier, Brennus, William Jesse, Coup D'Amour, Duke of Devonshire, Duke of Cambridge, Victor Hugo? In originating modern varieties, M. Laffay has not been less successful. Madame Laffay, Coup d'Hébé, La Reine, Great Western, Comtesse Duchâtel, Dr. Marx, Lady Alice Peel, Comtesse Molé, Duchess of Sutherland, Le Commandant Fournier, Eugène Sue, La Superbe, and others, of nearly equal merit, have been raised in his garden. His residence (Div. I.)

d

at Bellevue, a few miles from Paris, is a most enviable one: he lives surrounded with Roses and Chestnut-trees; and his garden, although not extensive, commands a wide and most agreeable prospect. The soil is a stiff-I had almost said rankclay, and does not appear to have much labour bestowed on its amelioration.

Both M. Vibert and M. Laffay-the former especially-have been engaged in the cultivation of Roses for many years; and their enterprise and industry have brought them a full reward. They now cultivate more for amusement than for profit, confining themselves chiefly to the raising of seedlings, and the propagating of them for distribution. Having realized a comfortable independency, and attained to the highest eminence in their profession, they seem content to recline beneath the laurels they have so peacefully won. In the Preface to his Catalogue, published towards the close of 1846, M. Vibert writes to this effect :—“ My establishment, which I founded in 1815, and where Roses only are cultivated for sale, is the first of the kind which had existence in France. Thirty-five years' practice in this branch of Horticulture, with numerous and reiterated experiments made on every mode of cultivation; a long habit of seeing, studying, and of comparing the productions of this beautiful genus ;-such are, at the least, the claims I have to public confidence. But I know all the obligations under which I remain, from the long and sustained kindness with which amateurs and the members of the profession have honoured me; and it is in reply to the honourable proofs of concern which have been so often addressed to me, that I am resolved not entirely to renounce my profession. To cover the expense of my garden, and to use my time sparingly, is the end which I propose to myself. Without seeking to extend my connections, I shall receive willingly orders from persons sufficiently reasonable to value what time and care it costs in the present day to obtain novelties really decided. I shall always continue the cultivation of my seedlings; I shall never renounce them; I shall rather increase them; and shall propagate but few others."

M. Laffay wrote to me last autumn: "C'est mon intention de cèsser le commerce. Mon projet était de quitter cet automne, et de m'installer dans le sud de la France, sous le climat des Orangers et Palmiers; mais mon Pére, qui est très âgé, ne veut pas que nous le quittions cet hiver. Ce qui dérange un peu nos projets d'émigration, qui ne sont que retardés. Aussi il est bien possible que je vous offre encore quelques bonnes Roses, sur-tout des Mousseuses Hybrides, car je me dispose à faire un semis de plusieurs milles graines de ces variétés. Ainsi je présume que ma Pépinière sera encore bonne à visiter quelques anneés. Je suis persuadé qu'a l'avenir nous verrons de bien belles Roses, qui effaceront toutes celles que nous admirons maintenant. Les Mousseuses joueront bientôt un grand rôle dans l'Horticulture."

"It is my intention to cease cultivating the Rose, in a commercial sense. My project was to do so this autumn, and to instal myself in the south of France, in the land of orange and palm-trees; but my father, who is very aged, wished that we should not quit Paris this winter. This deranges a little our plans of emigration,