NATURE'S LAW OF COLORS. 257 



alterable as the law of gravitation. If we reflect, we will 

 find there is nothing out of the usual order of nature in 

 this uniformity. The coloring given to the plumage of 

 birds is as unalterable as that given to the petals of a 

 flower in particular families. The most enthusiastic 

 poultry fancier will look in vain for the scarlet plumage 

 of the Flamingo in his Dorkings or Brahmas, or the 

 color of the Baltimore Oriole in the occupants of his 

 pigeon-house. What more reason, then, has the florist 

 to expect that Nature should deviate from her fixed 

 course, and gladden his eye with a Rose or Dahlia of an 

 azure hue, or that a Verbena or a Petunia should be pro- 

 duced of a golden shade ? 



A knowledge of this subject is much needed by our 

 amateur horticulturists, who are imposed upon year 

 after year by itinerant dealers, who with flaming colored 

 drawings of these impossibilities in floriculture extract 

 largely from the pockets of their victims, and in addition 

 expose them to the ridicule of their less credulous or 

 more cautious neighbors. The audacity of these scair 

 is truly astonishing ; not a season passes t ^c some or 

 them have the impudence to plant themselves right in 

 the business centres of the city of New York, and 

 hundreds of our sharp business men have for the con- 

 sideration of four or five dollars, believed themselves in 

 the possession of veritable blue Roses. Need I say that 

 they were no less humbugged than the rustic who falls 

 into the hands of a mock auctioneer, and chuckles to 

 think that he has become the possessor of a gold watch 

 for a similar price ? 



In Rand's " Flowers for the Parlor and Garden," page 

 101, in remarking on the colors of the Verbena, he says 

 a good yellow Verbena has not yet been produced, but 

 goes on to say that he, "by a curious process of watering 

 and fertilization with a white Verbena, obtained a seed- 

 ling which proved on blooming to be of a light straw color; 



