258 PRACTICAL FLORICULTUKE. 



but the plant was weakly and sickly, and died before 

 cuttings could be taken. " This " weakly " and " sickly " 

 condition was exactly why Mr. Rand obtained his straw 

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

 have been only an impure white. 



There are few florists of any experience who have not 

 raised hundreds of just such " straw colors " in Verbenas 

 from white, that have been iveak 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 London, 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" 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. 



Not only are blue, yellow and scarlet colors never found 

 in varieties of the same species, but so far even pure 

 yellow or pure scarlet is never found, nor ever likely to be 



