About Hybrid Perpetual Roses
It is not necessary to tell what particular old roses became the great-grandparents of our present roses. Indeed, it would be a difficult matter, for commercial rose growers have guarded well the secret of just what roses they used to produce the new ones.
The term given to a new flower is hybrid, which means a mixture. When, about the year 1825, a new class of roses, called the Hybrid Perpetual, was brought into existence, everybody was glad, because these new hybrids bloomed longer than any of their parents; were of good strong growth; and were perfectly hardy.
Perfectly hardy means that they would live out-of-doors over severe winter weather.
Hybrid Perpetual roses are among our most prized roses of to-day for these same reasons; but we now have a still more valuable class of hybrids, with a longer season of bloom, which were derived from—