y this you will judge, Mary Penrose, that a rosary has its labours, as
well as pleasures, and that like all other joys it is accompanied by
difficulties. Yet you can grow good roses if you _will_, but the
difficulty is that most people _won't_. I think, by the way, that remark
belongs to Dean Hole of fragrant rose-garden memory, and of a truth he
has said all that is likely to be spoken or written about the rose on
the side of both knowledge and human fancy for many a day.

Modern roses of the hybrid-perpetual and hybrid-tea types may be bought
of several reliable dealers for twenty-five dollars per hundred, in two
conditions, either grown on their own roots or budded on Manette or
brier stock. Personally I prefer the first or natural condition, if the
constitution of the plant is sufficiently vigorous to warrant it. There
are, however, many indispensable varieties that do better for the
infusion of vigorous brier blood. A budded rose will show the junction
by a little knob where the bud was inserted; this must be planted at
least three inches below ground so that new shoots will be encouraged to
spring from _above_ the bud, as those below are merely wild, worthless
suckers, to be removed as soon as they appear.

[Illustration: A CONVENIENT ROSE BED.]

How can you tell wild suckers from the desired growth? At first by
following them back to the root until you have taken their measure, but
as soon as experience has enlightened you they will be as easily
recognized at sight as the mongrel dog by a connoisseur. Many admirable
varieties, like Jacqueminot, Anne de Diesbach, Alfred Colomb, Madame
Plantier, and all the climbers, do so well on their own roots that it is
foolish to take the risk of budded plants, the worse side of which is a
tendency to decay at the point of juncture. Tea roses, being of rapid
growth and flowering wholly upon new wood, are perfectly satisfactory
when rooted from cuttings.

Of many well-attested varieties of hybrid perpetuals, hybrid China, or
other so-called June roses, you may at the start safely select from the
following twenty.

_Pink, of various shades_

1. Anne de Diesbach. One of the most fragrant, hardy, and
altogether satisfactory of hybrid
perpetual roses. Forms a large bush,
covered with large deep carmine-pink
flowers. Should be gr