1871 



THE WESTERN POMOLOGIST. 



11 



be to know how to obtain these colors, before I 

 heard of aniline. So likewise in my boyhood I 

 longed for a mode to preserve the pictures, as seen 

 in a camera obscura. This, Daguarre, Talbot and 

 others, have since accomplished in Photography. 



Thus we witness an onward march in Chemistry 

 and Philosophy, and if tlie rising tide of information 

 will occasionally submerge one of the old land 

 marks, sacredly believed in because taught by a 

 Newton, it can not be helped ; the word is onward, 

 yea and upward. 



J. Smith Esq., of Perth Academy, comes to the 

 conclusion that varieties of colors are produced by 

 pulsations of light and sliadow in diSerent propor- 

 tions for each shade of color, and that light is sim- 

 ple and not compound, tliat the phenomena of the 

 prismatic refraction and polarization of light must 

 be explained upon hypotheses, altogether different 

 from those of Sir Isaac Newton. Mr Smith's views 

 are well sustained by his experiments. 



The various theories of the cause of color are j'ct 

 somewhat conflicting. I do not feel competent to 

 mend the matter, but rather to school myself in this 

 branch of actino chemistry. 



We see that the ravs of light act in conjunction 

 with the carbonic acid of i)lauts. The colors which 

 favor the decomposition of carbonic acid 

 most, is yellow, and red next ; violet and blue 

 affect it but little. With green light — whether from 

 the color contained in vegetables or from solution or 

 colored glass, the action is peculiar; under this influ- 

 ence, the carbonic acid is " nil " as one writer says, 

 a new quantity of this gas is on the contrary, pro- , 

 duced by the plant. 



A blue coloring matter has been obtained from 

 the petals of violets, of roses, peonies, and experi- 

 mented with — this cyanine or blue matter on wliich 

 the vegetable juices have an acid re-action (turning 

 it red,) while the juice of the blue flowers are na- 

 tural. In the presence of alkalies the rose color be- 

 comes first blue and then green. 



The yellow coloring matter has no relation to 

 cyanine. There are two different substances one 

 insoluble in water (called xanthine) the other very 

 soluble (called xantlieine). The former analogous 

 to resin, and along with cyanine, it produces in 

 flowers an orange color, a scarlet and a red. The 

 other combines easily with oxides; alkalies, change 

 it to brown of a very rich color and strength: acids 

 destroy the brown. The colored juices of Plants are 

 chemically compounded, and dependent upon prin- 

 ciples not understood. We know that copper filings 

 disolved in a vial of volatile alkali will show a blue 

 color when the vial is unstopped to admit the air, 

 but when the cork is put in the blue color will dis- 

 appear. 



When a sharp fro.st occurs early in the fall, while 

 the pulps of the leaves are stiU full and plump, the red 



color comes out brilliantly in some particular kinds 

 of trees and shrub -, because the acid of the air acts 

 upon the blue substance. Certain trees, whose 

 chemical constituents in their sap, or more alkaline 

 properties, neutralize and modify these colors, from 

 pale straw through yellow, orange, rose, scarlet, to a 

 deep purple, and clothe (jur autumnal forests in the 

 varigated hues of the flower garden. The chemistry 

 of nature, oh ! how deep and marvelous, and past 

 finding out ! 



A chemist is a faint image of his creator, he may 

 combine certain articles from his knowledge and 

 experience, — foretell what the resultant compound 

 will be, when the laws ol chemic action lodged in 

 the materials have performed their ofiicc. 



But the wisdom of God is displayed in the per- 

 fection and wonderful results of organization and 

 life, from a monad to the planetary universe too 

 infinitely vast for finite creatures to comprehend. 



For the Wuteturn Pomologist. 



niaiiagemcut of tlie Xuberoae. 



Bv A, Veitcii, New Haven, Conn. 



We presume the cultivation of the Tuberose is 

 generally well understood, and yet it would seem 

 from the way in which the bulbs are sometimes 

 handled at lifting time they are not dealt with in 

 such a way as the nature and requirements of their 

 case demands. That method, by \vhich the greatest 

 quantity of flowering bulbs can be obtained year 

 after year, may safely be reckoned the best, and 

 what this is, may be a question of importance to 

 those whose success may not have been equal to 

 their wishes. 



In the management of this plant, as well as every 

 other, the largest amount of success depends upon 

 the cultivator's ability to furnish, or at least supple- 

 ment the means when the.se are wanting, by which 

 they are carried toward to perfection. And as it is 

 a native of a milder climate than this — one in which 

 the growth of summer is not liable to be suddenly 

 arrested by early frosts, but where, for aught we 

 know, it may be strictly evergreen. One draw-back 

 to their successful cultivation in northern latitudes, 

 is the shortness of the season they have to do their 

 work in. This obstacle not unfrequcntly stands in 

 the way of the bulbs being sufliciently matured to 

 flower the following year. Impressed with the cor- 

 rectness of this view I have for sometime thought 

 much harm can be done by cutting the leaves clean 

 oft" by the necks of the bulbs, immediately after lift- 

 ing, and by following an opposite course, have been 

 rewarded with a greater per centage of flowering 

 bulbs than when trimming clean and neat as for the 

 market, any time in Autumn or early Winter. In- 

 stead, therefore, of divesting them of any leaves but 

 what may have been hurt by frost, or in any way 

 disturbing the clusters of bulbs, we would recom- 



