double blush rose, distinct and good. La Neige is deserving of its name, for it is of the purest white, and very double and good. Lady Baillie, Marchioness of Lansdowne, and Sulphurea, are all pretty pale sulphur-coloured roses: from the seed of these it is very probable that some good yellow varieties may, at some future time, be raised.

The true Yellow is a hybrid raised in France, and in most seasons is a pretty sulphur-coloured rose, much admired; but in very hot weather it fades very soon to white: this was the case more particularly in 1837. It seemed much influenced, in common with the other Scotch roses, by the cold springs and a rapid transition to hot weather. William the Fourth is the largest pure-white Scotch rose known; a luxuriant grower and a good variety. Venus is an excellent dark rose with very double flowers, and distinct characters.

Scotch roses may be grown as standards, and the Yellow, and one or two of the more robust varieties, make good heads; but in general they form a round and lumpish tree, in ill accordance with good taste. When grown into beds and clumps as dwarfs they are beautiful, and in early seasons they will bloom nearly a fortnight before the other summer roses make their appearance. This, of course, makes them desirable appendages to the flower garden. They bear seed profusely; and raising new varieties from seed will be found

E

a most interesting employment. To do this, all that is required is to sow the seed as soon as ripe in October, in pots or beds of fine earth, covering it with nearly one inch of mould; the succeeding spring they will come up, and bloom in perfection the season following!

The aim should be to obtain varieties with large and very double crimson flowers: this can only be done by slightly hybridising; and to effect this it will be necessary to have a plant or two of the Tuscany rose trained to a south wall, so that their flowers are expanded at the same time as the Scotch roses in the open borders: unless thus forced they will be too late. Any dark-red varieties of the Scotch roses, such as Venus, Erebus, or Flora, should be planted separately from others, and their flowers fertilised with the above French rose. Some very original deep-coloured varieties will probably be obtained by this method. Sulphurea and one or two other straw-coloured varieties may be planted with the Double Yellow Austrian briar, and most likely some pretty sulphur-coloured roses will be the result of this combination.

THE SWEET BRIAR.

(ROSA RUBIGINOSA.)

Rosier Rouillé.

Who knows not the Sweet Briar? the Eglantine, that plant of song, the rhyme of which jingles. so prettily that nearly all our poets, even lovestricken rustics, have taken advantage of its sweet sound.

I will give to my love the Eglantine

has been often the beginning of a country lover's song; but, in sober truth, every one must love this simplest and sweetest of flowers, for what odour can surpass that emanating from a bush of Sweet Briar in the dewy evenings of June? It pleases not the eye, for the Single Sweet Briar bears flowers, in comparison with other roses, quite inconspicuous: but it gratifies in a high degree by its delicious perfume, and gives to the mind most agreeable associations, for it is so often (at least in Hertfordshire) the inhabitant of the pretty English cottage garden-such a garden as one sees nowhere but in England.

The Single Sweet Briar is a native plant, growing in dry and chalky soils in some of the southern counties: from it the following varieties, with some others, have been originated, more or less hybridised. The Carmine Sweet Briar, with

semi-double bright-red flowers. The Celestial, a beautiful little rose, with flowers very double and fragrant, of the palest flesh-colour approaching to white. The Monstrous Sweet Briar is a very old variety, with large and very double flowers. The Scarlet, or La Belle Distinguée, or Lee's Duchess, or La Petite Duchesse, for they are one and the same, is a pretty bright red, small, and compact rose, very distinct and good; but its leaves are entirely scentless. As allied with this. family I ought to mention a very beautiful hybrid, the Double-margined Hip, also Madeline, or Emmeline, with a ground-colour of creamy white, beautifully margined with pink: this forms a fine standard, and is also well adapted for a pillar

rose.

Sweet Briars form a pretty group, interesting from their origin and associations, and pleasing from their fragrance and peculiar neatness: they make also pretty trees, particularly on 'petites tiges,' as the French term them: they require the same culture as the other hardy roses.

Raising Varieties from Seed.

Humble as are the claims of the Sweet Briar, when contrasted with the gorgeous beauty of some of our new roses, yet it is so decidedly English, that raising new varieties from seed will, I am sure, be found interesting.

The Scarlet

may be planted with the common Sweet Briar, which so abounds in pollen, that fertilising will be found very easy. The beauty of the flowers of these Sweet Briars might be increased by hybridising with some of the French roses; but then their Sweet-Briar-like character would be lost, and with that a great portion of their interest.

The Hybrid China rose, Riego, if crossed with the common Sweet Briar, would produce seed from which large and very fragrant double roses might be expected, and these would partake largely of the character of the Sweet Briar.

THE AUSTRIAN BRIAR.

(ROSA LUTEA.)

Rosier Capucine.

THE Austrian Briar, a native of the south of Europe, is found on the hills of the north of Italy, producing copper or red as well as yellow flowers: but, strange to say, though the flowers are invariably single, yet they never produce seed. In this country also it is with extreme difficulty, and only by fertilising its flowers, that seed can be perfected: if the flowers are examined they will all be found deficient in pollen, which accounts