for the purposes of a modest rose garden, one would not go far wrong if he limited his choice of varieties to the Hybrid Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals and a few of the Teas, with several of the wichuraiana and rugosa hybrids for trellis and hedge.

The name Hybrid Perpetual is borne by an enormous group of roses which have been derived from various species, crossed and recrossed until the parentage is in most cases hopelessly involved. The "Perpetual" half of the name signifies that the rose continues to bloom more or less frequently throughout the summer. As a matter of fact, it is usually less.

Teas or Tea-scented China roses form a distinct group that is readily recognized by the characteristic scent of the flowers and by the smoothness of its leaves. Teas are, in a way, the aristocrats of the rose garden. They bloom with no great blare of trumpets in June, like the Perpetuals, but they keep steadily at their work of producing exquisite blooms, one or two at a time, throughout the summer. Their one serious handicap is a lack of hardiness, which they possess only in a slight and very variable degree; and they must be very carefully protected in the north to bring them safely through the winter. Even though I were forced to buy new plants each spring, however, I would not have a rose garden without Teas.

Ulrich Brunner, a red Hybrid Perpetual that has achieved an excellent reputation. The H.P. type is characterized by hardiness and great freedom of bloom in June. Thereafter throughout the summer the burden of display must be borne by the Teas and Hybrid Teas.

Hybrid Teas, as the name signifies, are successful crosses between the Tea and roses in the Hybrid Perpetual group. This class combines the persistence of the Tea with the sturdier growth of the Perpetuals, and from it we shall probably get the great bulk of our garden roses for some years to come.

The Moss Rose, of which you will surely want a representative in your garden, belongs in the Provence group, as will be seen in the tabular classification at the end of this chapter. Who does not know its beautiful buds in their setting of mossy stems? This rose, like many a one that has not gotten such a grip on our affections, has refused steadfastly to mix its blood with another species, and has retained its good points and its bad ones for over three hundred years. It is quite hardy but is rather susceptible to mildew.

There are other roses, too, outside the larger and best-known groups—roses that, because of some superlative merit in one direction or because of past associations, lay a strong hand on our heart-strings and plead for an obscure corner of the new rose garden: the bristling Scotch Rose, the fragrant Damasks, the sweetbrier or eglantine with its inimitable fragrant foliage, the Penzance Brier Hybrids, the White Banksian of southern gardens with its odor of violets, the Persian Yellow of our grand-mothers' gardens, and the hundred-petaled Cabbage Rose, parent of the Moss.

Climbing roses are to be found in many of the groups—Wichuraiana, Ayrshire, Polyantha, Musk, Noisette and as sports in the Hybrid Perpetual, Tea and Hybrid Tea groups.

It is in another class, however, that we may look for the ideal American roses of the future. Not many years ago, came to us three natives of Japan, Rosa wichuraiana, Rosa multiflora and Rosa rugosa. From the first two has been developed by our American hybridizers the race of Ramblers, while from the third has come such sturdy children as Conrad F. Meyer, perhaps the ideal hedge rose for our northern climate. In the estimation of Professor Charles S. Sargent, the dean of American horticulture, it is along the line of rugosa hybrids that we shall succeed in filling our gardens with large, beautiful, hardy and continuously flowering roses.

The climate of the South and California seems ideally suited to the Teas, producing a wealth of exquisite bloom that fills those of us that live in more trying surroundings with envy. In the South also they have the Cherokee Rose (Rosa lævigata or sinica), flourishing along roadsides and in great masses on the prairies, its long, arching stems bearing a wealth of pure white, single flowers, four or five inches across, in a setting of brilliant, evergreen foliage. It is one of our American hybridizers' hopes and aims to cross this with a hardy rose to gain sufficient stamina for the North.

And out in Oregon, the Hybrid Perpetuals and Hybrid Teas grow to a size and beauty that is unsurpassed the world over. Practically every kind of rose can be grown in the Puget Sound district, and the amateurs of that locality seem to have as little trouble with rose pests as we do here with our hardy decorative shrubs.

Marechal Neil, a tender climbing Tea rose, dark golden-yellow in color, requires winter protection in the North. The Tea is the aristocrat of the rose garden, unapproached for delicate fragrance, refined form of the individual blooms, and continued flowering throughout the summer.

To sum up the whole matter of classification and to show the relative positions of many groups that, for lack of space, have not even been mentioned above, the following tabular key is given—a slightly modified form of the classification given in the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture:

I. Summer-flowering Roses, blooming once only

A. Large-flowered (double).

1. Growth branching or pendulous; leaf wrinkled.

Provence

Moss

Pompon

Sulphurea

2. Growth firm and robust; leaf downy.

Damask and French

Hybrid French

Hybrid Provence

Hybrid Bourbon

Hybrid China

3. Growth free; leaf whitish above; spineless. Alba

B. Small-flowered (single and double).

1. Growth climbing; flowers produced singly.

Ayrshire

2. Growth short-jointed, generally, except in Alpine.

Briers

Austrian

AustrianScotch

AustrianSweet

AustrianPenzance

AustrianPrairie

AustrianAlpine

3. Growth climbing; flowers in clusters.

AustrianMultiflora

AustrianPolyantha

4. Growth free; foliage persistent (more or less shiny).

Evergreen

Sempervirens

Sempervirens Wichuraiana

Sempervirens Cherokee

Sempervirens Banksian

5. Growth free; foliage wrinkled.

Sempervirens Pompon

II. Summer- and Autumn-flowering Roses, blooming more or less continuously

A. Large-flowered.

1. Foliage very rough.

Hybrid Perpetual

Hybrid Tea

Moss

2. Foliage rough.

Bourbon

Bourbon Perpetual

3. Foliage smooth.

China

Tea

Lawrenceana (Fairy)

B. Smaller-flowered.

1. Foliage deciduous

a. Habit climbing.

Musk

Noisette

Ayrshire

Polyantha

Wichuraiana Hybrids

b. Habit dwarf, bushy.