CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 137 



the man who should have foretold that the flickering shadow 

 would be made to stand still, and that intelHgence would be sent 

 a thousand miles with the quickness of the hghtning's flash, 

 would have subjected himself to the strongest ridicule ; yet these 

 results have both been obtained — one by Daguerre, and the other 

 by one of our own countrymen. No one, then, should be deter- 

 red from experiments of the nature above cited, from the dread 

 of ridicule ; but when such fear is upon him, let him recollect, 

 that after the invention of the Daguerreotype and the Magnetic 

 Telegraph, nothing can be deemed impossible or incredible, re- 

 specting the natural agents which have been placed by Supreme 

 Wisdom in the hands of man. 



If it is found by actual and repeated experiment, that the Ara- 

 bian process will not produce blue roses, may there not be .some 

 other mode to attain that result ? It is well known that the 

 color of the flowers of the Hydrangea frequently passes from a 

 light rose into a deep blue. This is generally attributed to the 

 presence in the soil of some peculiar chemical substance. It 

 may be possible to ascertain this substance by careful and repeat- 

 ed analyses of the soil ; and if obtained, and placed in the soil in 

 which the Rose is grown, it would very probably produce the result 

 that we observe in the Hydrangea. This also is an interesting 

 experiment, and would be well worth the trial. It is true that 

 the Hydrangeas, in a part of our grounds, have the past year 

 been nearly all blue without any care of our own, while roses 

 grown within a few feet of them have been unchanged. This 

 peculiarity, therefore, in the Hydrangea, may be owing to the 

 presence in its roots of some chemical substance, which, combining 

 with another in the soil, produces the unique result which we 

 observe in this plant alone. These two chemical substances 

 could also probably be discovered, if the subject were taken up 

 by some skilful chemist and carefully investigated, with the 

 assistance of an intelligent and practical horticulturist. With- 

 out absolutely asserting that such will be the results, I think we 

 need not despair of obtaining roses of various singular shades, 

 by cultivating them in soil with whose constituent elements we 



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