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Hybrid Perpetuals and Tea Roses are rarely seen today; the Hybrid Tea (with, in most cases, some Pernetiana heredity) is the rose of the middle 1900s, associated, in particular, with Floribundas and, to a lesser degree, with Hybrid Giganteas and Hybrid Wichuraianas. We rarely see a rose raised forty years ago. A well-known Australian firm catalogued about five hundred varieties in 1952, of which only fourteen existed in 1920. It seems, almost invariably, that the people who sigh for "the old roses" have never grown either the old or the new varieties. If people asked for the so-called old roses (and nobody seems clearly to understand what these people mean by the term) our nurserymen would grow them; it would mean more business for them. Similarly, our Australian and New Zealand Rose Annuals, first published in 1928, have each contained lists of roses recommended for various purposes compiled from lists submitted by competent and well-mformed rose-growers, mostly amateurs who have no ulterior motives in advocating new varieties. Of the roses on the original lists very few remain-four of the twenty-four exhibition roses, and three of the twenty-four garden roses.

Progress is ruthless and knows no sentiment, even with roses. One occasionally finds a gardener fondly clinging to some old variety among a collection of newer sorts, or even to a whole garden of "old-fashioned" roses, but that is more in the way of a collector of antiques than of the general rose-loving public.

Year by year the world's hybridists sow many thousands of rose seeds and carefully watch the plants grow and bloom. The few that are chosen as promising are observed for several seasons, and from them only a very small number are selected for distribution as new varieties. This work goes on in many countries, especially in France, Northern Ireland, England, Germany, Holland, Luxemburg, Spain, America, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

Probably well over a hundred million seeds have been sown to raise the thirty-odd thousand rose varieties that have been distributed for sale so far. Most of the well-established hybridists send out a few novelties each year; in addition, some come from less regular sources of supply. The vast majority of novelties fall below expectations and are soon discarded. The rose-growers, for the most part the home gardeners, are the sole arbiters, and of the thousands of varieties offered they have retained only a few hundred. Of these, little more than fifty varieties are grown in any one Australian State in sufficient numbers to justify their being deemed popular. The ardent rose enthusiast will grow others, and enthusiasts will differ in their choice, depending on the specific purpose for which they grow their roses, for these people have different views and purposes, and choose accordingly.

Each year Australian nurserymen import approximately one hundred new varieties. They are the best of that year's productions, but very few are still catalogued five years later. In the past, all of them were brought as plants by sea, but in recent years many have come by air transport; some come as plants, but in most instances only the budding-wood is sent, a method that has proved better in all ways.