Rose culture is one of the most fascinating occupations in the line of horticulture.  But when you come to talking or writing about it you scarcely know where to begin or what to say, there passes before your eye an exhibition of such an amazing fragrance and beauty of varying colors.  Even now as I am writing these lines I can see with my mind’s eye every rose in my garden, some in their full glory, filling the air with the sweet fragrance; others just opening; others in bud; and so on in an ever pleasing variety.  I have taken special interest in roses for some ten or twelve years and have grown a good many different varieties of them with success, good, bad and indifferent.  I have succeeded well with some of the hybrid perpetual roses.  At the present time I have in my garden Paul Neyron, General Jacquiminot, Ulric Brunner, Black Prince, Etoile De France, Frau Karl Droschky and Marshall P. Wilder, also others of which I have lost the names.  Of climbing roses I have Crimson Rambler, Thousand Beauties, Prairie Queen and Dorothy Perkins.  All the above named are everbloomers, except the climbers, and all need careful winter protection.

How to grow them.—­Get two year old No. 1 plants and prepare your soil just like you would for your vegetable garden.  If your soil is not particularly rich, spade in a liberal quantity of well rotted manure and mix well with soil.  Set your plants and keep up clean cultivation all summer and give them plenty of water, and you will have an abundance of roses the first year.  In the fall get some clean straw, bend your rose bushes over, put a fence post across on top of them to hold them down and then cover with straw to a depth of one foot.  Or if you have a number of them planted in one row, make a long box about two feet wide and about twenty inches deep, fill about half full of straw, then place along side of the row of plants, bend your plants down lengthwise the row, then tip the box over them, put some straw around sides of box and on the outside put some posts or boards on to hold it down, when you will have the best protection possible.  Right here I want to put in a word of warning, and that is, if you do not like to do extra work don’t attempt to grow roses; in other words, if you are lazy they don’t like you well enough to stay with you, for it means work and lots of it.

We have, however, one class of roses which can be grown by every one who wants them, the hybrid Rosa Rugosa roses.  Of them we have such as Blanche D. Caubet, pure white of large size, a perpetual bloomer; Sir Thomas Lipton, also white, a little smaller in blossom but perfectly double; Conrad Meyer, clear silvery pink, of large size, very double and of choicest fragrance, a continuous bloomer (needs some winter protection); New Century, rosy pink, shading to almost red in the center, good size and double.  One of the hardiest is Hansa, deep violet red, very large, double and an exceedingly profuse and continuous bloomer, absolutely hardy.  These five varieties can be considered as everybody’s roses, because of the easiness and sureness with which they can be grown, taking into consideration the elimination of winter protection.  Planting, preparation of ground and cultivation are the same as for all other roses.  Do not imagine for a minute that they will do well in sod or grass.