.322 • THE GARDENER. [July 



that this native bulb could be induced to alter its time and manner of 

 flowering — something like washing the Ethiopian white : with our 

 present knowledge of natural law, it is absurd ; but then our know- 

 ledge, how limited ! how little we really know ! 



There are many things desirable that may not be attainable. At- 

 tempts have been made to raise a Blue Geranium, hitherto without 

 effect. Efforts have been made to procure the " Blue Camellia," but 

 it has not yet come upon the stage, and if our knowledge is not greatly 

 extended, we may safely assert it never will ; but with an enlarged 

 knowledge of natural laws, we should possess a power, of which, under 

 our present circumstances, we can form no adequate conception. Na- 

 ture is full of secrets. All natural phenomena are secrets until they 

 are discovered. These discoveries are not always the result of study 

 or of reasoning. What we perhaps erroneously call chance has often 

 led to great results. The inquiring mind, ever on the alert, observes 

 facts which reason moulds and shapes. Sometimes a secret is devel- 

 oped intuitively, as it were, when all reasoning is at fault. One fact 

 is very certain — an unobserving mind can never expect to fathom the 

 secrets of nature, or even to comprehend what other minds may ob- 

 serve and explain. Wherever the mind is given to application, the 

 attainment of knowledge is sweet. Whether it comes as the result of 

 thought and reasoning, by instinct, or by chance, the pleasure derived 

 from its acquisition is sweet, and its possession a power. 



But our subject has been forgotten in following some thoughts on 

 its attainment. A great question arises — Are the laws of Nature im- 

 mutable, or are they capable of being moulded to suit the wishes and 

 wants of man ? I do not mean simply developing natural agents, such 

 as converting water into steam, for instance ; neither would we think of 

 the art of the alchemist, or of the philosopher's stone. Yet we do 

 think there are vast resources attainable which have never been 

 reached or even dreamed of — great secrets to be opened which will give 

 us power to penetrate still farther into the regions beyond ; for we hold 

 it as simply absurd that man, as man, can ever attain to all knowledge. 



S. X. 



CALADIUM METALLICUM. 



This plant, better known by the synonym of Alocasia metallica, ranks 

 amongst the most useful of stove fine-foliage plants. When well 

 grown, and red-spider kept away, a good specimen is a telling object, 

 and more especially so when a crop of young leaves has just 

 developed — the metallic hue of the foliage is then most chaste and 

 beautiful. Its culture is extremely simple : cutting the stems into bits 



