San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-02-01
Mr., BANCROFTS ROSES.



lexington Correspondent Chicago Tribune.
NJ Bancroft's hobby is rose-cult-
- Fancy this of man who spends
a alSs in setting up the dry bones of
aas and breathing into them the life
i ~ historyl His winter home is a
gyanhle brown stone, and had original
!" a small strip of ground on each
ggas Of the entrance. There was one
Nave of color from February to June.
Snch hyacinths surely never bloom
inside of a poem; and the tulips
lacked as if some tropical bird had
Seen plucked near by and its plumage
Gathered broadcast over the beds.
Every shade and coler in natures
naint box was represented, and under
The wooing sun and soft air of mid
winter, they thrust up from the mold
LONG before the leaves were out or the
Snring Prince had kissed the sleeping
world to life, and in the SHOWS and
storms that always follow such
weather truce, they would stand
erect and glowing and hold their
ground until the green was washed in
10 the hills and the cat-tails began to
frisk on the trees.
But all of this was only prelude
10 his rose garden. He bought a
large lot which Joined his property at
right angles, facing on Seventeenth
street; of course he paid fancy price
for it, as it was in the heart of the
West End. Straightway he planted
it all in roses.
Such flowers!
They ranged in colors from the
nalest bloom of Provence to the pas
ssionate heart of the Jacquimenot;
Marechel Mel bends in stately cour-
tesy to Marie elliot and signs in per-
fume for the Cloth of Gold and the
memories of the Malmaison; Madame
Melsh shakes her petals at the White
Coouet, the Altar rose, the pale Safro-
ma and the Damask Blush; the DIicra-
fila lifts up it's white cups to the sun,
and Maria Cook faints in the glow OF
sisterhood whose very name have
forgotten. The garden is like a tenn
pie where a thousand spices are burn
ing in flames of as many colors, land the
venerable historian is the worshiper.
He is an early riser, and many a
morning I have been awakened by
cries and comments, incoherent as to
words but ringing with pleasure. I
would go to my window, and there,
bending over rose after rose, would be
the slight elestic figure of their adore1
his white beard and hair sweeping
the freshness from their chalices and
getting the first perfumes of the
young day. He carried a book in one
hand and a "three-legged stool on
the other, and spent two OF three
hours just wandering from bush to
bush in an ecstacy of content-some-
times kissing the flowers, sometimes
caressing them with his fingers, and
frequently dropping on his stool under
some specially odorous cluster to read
his book to the accompaniment
sound sense and sweet scents!
His house at Newport is surround
ed by sea of bloom and fragrance,
and he makes his roses the calender
by which he tell off his seasons. lie
stays in Washington until June and
Jacqueminots die together; then he flies
to his Northern garden, where he lin
gers until the hardest of it's denizens
are dead, and the ghosts of their petals
fall in Snow from the clouds of No
vember. His home in Washington
is stored with interesting things, the
speciality being that there is one OF
every thing and that one of the very
best. His hospitality is lavish and
elegant, and his library what Ruskln
would call "a tomb of the kings" In
build the historian is, as have said,
slight, his hair and beard are like
cream colored silk, his dark eyes ten
der with the fires of 40, and his move
ments are quick and graceful: Hf
rides every day on fiery black horse
and can tire out his young compan
ions in hard trot every time.