ANECDOTE OF A ROSE-TREE. 229 



the vendor. At length when it bloomed, all 

 my hopes were blasted. The flowers were of 

 a faded colour. I therefore resolved to sacri- 

 fice it to some experiments which I had in 

 view. I then covered the earth in the pot in 

 which my rose-bush was, about half an inch 

 deep with pulverized charcoal ; some days after 

 I was astonished to see the roses which bloomed 

 of as fine a lively rose colour as I could wish ! 

 When the rose-bush had done flowering I took 

 off the charcoal and put fresh earth about the 

 roots. You may conceive that I waited for 

 the next spring impatiently to see the result of 

 this experiment. When it bloomed the roses 

 were, as at first, pale and discoloured; but, by 

 applying the charcoal as before, the roses soon 

 resumed their rosy red colour. I tried the 

 powdered charcoal likewise, in large quantities, 

 upon my petunias, and found that both the 

 white and the violet flowers were equally sen- 

 sible to its action. It always gave great vigour 

 to the red or violet colours of flowers, and the 

 white petunias became veined with red or violet 

 tints ; the violets became covered with irregular 

 spots of a bluish or almost black tint. Many 

 persons who admired them thought that they 

 were new varieties from the seed. Yellow 

 flowers are insensible to the influence of char- 

 coal." 



These singular and simple experiments de- 



