Roses, too, improve in strength not less than in range
of colour. There are few better " doers " in the catalogue than the new and all-popular Betty Uprichard or the best and sweetest of the dark reds, Etoile d'Hollande. Few roses are more sweetly scented or hold their heads up more proudly than Dame Helen Elizabeth ; and she equals the old sweet- scented cabbage rose in number of petals—in body. All these and a host of others are flowering freely at this date for the third time. What a change from the days when Horace could sigh : "Hen, nimium breves
Flores amoenas ferre jube ro-ae."
A flower of this date whose advance seemed especially to astonish and delight the general public is the Montbretia. Why are most gardeners solely content with the old small- flowered variety when they could set beside it the newer yellow-tinted and big-flowered sorts ? In some cases it is even more easy to grow the better sorts than the worse.
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