220 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE, 



ing and fertilization* with* a white Verbena, obtained a 

 seedling which proved on blooming to be of a light straw 

 color; but the plant was weakly and sickly ', and died be- 

 fore cuttings could be taken." This " weakly " and " sick- 

 ly " condition was exactly why Mr. Rand obtained his 

 straw color ; had the plant been in health it, no doubt, 

 would have been only att impure white. 



There are few florists of any experience who have not 

 raised hundreds of just such "straw colors" inVerbenas from 

 white, that have been weak and sickly, for we all know 

 that the want of vitality in the plant imparts a jaundiced 

 hue to white flowers. 



It is hardly fair in Mr. Rand to withhold from us what 

 that " curious process of watering and fertilization " was, 

 by which he succeeded in bringing into existence what De 

 Candolle, Lindley, and Loudon, have said can never be. 

 When a man writes a book for the information of the 

 public nothing should be held in reserve; his readers have 

 a right to every " secret " that he may possess connected 

 with the subject, and this reservation of Mr. Rand in so 

 very interesting a matter is tantalizing in the extreme. 

 Who knows but if he had given us the modus operandi 

 of his "curious process of watering and fertilization" 

 our Verbena beds would have long since had a golden 

 yellow flaunting side by side with scarlet and blue, or 

 that the same " curious process of watering and fertiliza- 

 tion " applied to the Rose, would have produced a color 

 rivalling a blue-bird in April ? 



It is much to be regretted that Mr. Rand's yellow Ver- 

 bena was lost, but we trust that the " curious process " 

 by which it was produced is not among the lost arts. If 

 an application of it can be made to produce a positively 

 yellow Verbena, the gentleman will receive the honors of 

 the whole horticultural world, and, if he chooses, can 

 pocket some thousands of dollars. 



