The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1896-06-11

bloom, in March and APP ii. 1t is like
trying to make man VIII Is blind and
has no sense of smell k now the deli
cacy and beauty of q came lila. Go where
you will, turn your eI es In any d.
rection, and there are t,cenes beauti-
fully colored by thous ands'of roses.
The most delicate tea rol 'es, the rarest
Marechal Niels, and the most royal
Marie Van Houtes grow 3beside the
door of the lowest mountain cabin,
while climbing roses: of the most ex-
1uisite varieties Chamber with tropic
luxuriance up the sides of old barns
and adorn deserted cattle and horse
corrals. In some loc slities there are
literal thickets of La Marque, Rain
bow, and Glare Carnot roses, which
might each winter bring hundreds Of
dollars to their careless owners if the
floral crop could be 6 altered and sold
in New York or any Eastern city. On
the road of Los An geles and about
Pomona there are in the aggregate
fully mile of thidl hedges of Mare
chal Mel, Cherokee, and Jacqueminot
roses. In tho SESSION of blossoming
the air is in many valleys heavy with
the perfume Of roses.
The remarkasoAs luxurian9e of roses,
as we'll as of all varieties cf vegetation
in Southern Cali fornia, is accounted
for by the fact that rarely is there
touch of frost, mnd the soil, IN itself
of extraordinary fertility, has the quail
ity of holding moisture we'll, and Civ
ing itup to the plant life when needed.
Vines, plants, bushes, and trees that
can flourish in n temperature which
only q few times q year goes below
thlrty-seven degrees above zero. suffer
from no setback becanse of climatic
vicissitudes, and from the day of their
eermination until extreme old age,
have nothing to do but grow, grow,
grow, season after yessson and year at
ter year.
In some of the, rose gardens, par
ticularly through The San Gabriel and
Pomona valleys, there are grown more
than 150 separate and distinct varie-
ties of roses. Ia the well-known Skin
ner rose garde n in Pomona 178 varie.
ties OF roses blossom for month or
two every year, while twenty-five
varie dies Imported from Japan and
islarsds in. the Mediterranean are in
ann aal Gloom ten months out OF
tive I've. The wealth of color and the
ser Sc of boundless profusion begotten
by a visit TO these Southern California
rose gardens are inexpressible. Often
O. n arbor has been built to support the
climbing roses planted by its side, and
the structure is in year or two COM
pletely covered by the network of
branches and blossoms, while long
graceful branches droop to the ground.
In the season of flowers, as one stands
at distance and looks at these rose
arbors, they present a picture of flow
ing cataracts of brilliant bloom, and
the whole fills the air with delicate
odors such as no perfumer has ever
been able to distil.
AS one walks along the streets of the
older settled towns, such as Santa Bar
bara, San Gabriel, and Santa Ana,
large branches, laden heavily with
roses more perfect in form and color
than tens of thousands that are sold IN
New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and
other Eastern cities for 81 o dozen,
thrust themselves over the fences or
cypress hedges, across his way, as if
to dare,him to purloin their wondrous
beauty. On scores OF streets there are
rows of pepper trees, up whose shaggy
bark Cloth of Gold, Beauty of Glazen-
wood and Devoniensis roses have been
trained to climb so thickly as to con-
ceal the trunk from sight. In the
months of blossoming roses there can
hardly be more royal sight than a
row of these pepper trees, enveloped
from the earth clear to the branches
in a mantle of thousands of roses of
all imaginable hues, and bearing aloft
ponderous branches of fine, thick
green foliage.
The rapid and immense growth OF
all rose plants is matter OF astonish-
ment to oil newcomers to Southern
California. There are hundreds of
climbing roses that have grown twen-
ty-five and thirty feet in three years.
At the Arlington in Santa Barbara
there is climbing rose bush some
twenty years old, whose innumerable
branches cover an area of over 1000
square feet on the long side of the
hotel. Its four main trunks, a yard
above the roots, are each five inches
in diameter, and it is common for peo-
pie in Santa Barbara to be photo
graphed sitting on curve made by
one of these trunk branches. At
Riverside there is La Marque rose
bush, fourteen years old, that has
twisted its huge branches serpent-like
about the trunk of a mammoth pepper
tree and followed each limb of the
tree out to the end so that in the
weeks of rose blooming the tree looks
like stupendous bouquet OF green
fiecked with tens of thousands of
white roses. Climbing roses that
hear 10. 600 and 10. 900 blossoms ct Q