AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 3 15 



Out of all the refuse in making sugar, being about seven per 

 cent, of the cane juice, rum is distilled j and about eighty gallons 

 are made out of the original juice, while about sixteen cvvt. of 

 sugar, or hogsliead, is made. The average quantity of rum to 

 sugar is even as high as ninety-two gallons to the sixteen cwt. or 

 hogshead. 



[llevue Horticole, Journal d'Horticulture Pratique, July, 1837, Paris.] 



BLUE DAHLIAS AND BLACK ROSES. 



The question has been put to us, Why does horticulture resolve 

 the problem of blue dahlias and black roses ? 



Here is our answer. The blue dahlia will j^robably never be 

 produced. Humboldt found the dahlia wild in the high valleys 

 of Mexico; lie thought it a faithful form of Helianthus, sunflower. 

 It was boasted as a new table root at first, but it was soon found 

 to be totally unfit to eat, having a sharp, peppery, acid taste, aro- 

 matized. Next the gardeners dropped the flowers. But the seed 

 happening to be planted, produced a new variety of the flower, 

 remarkable both in colors, forms and size; became imbricated 

 regularly; still it produced seeds; soon it gave double flowers, 

 and so on to probaljle perfection in forms. The colors extend 

 from pure white to red, and almost to black; all tints but blue 

 alone. Nature seems to have refused blue to dahlia. Its natural 

 colors are led and purple. Attempts at crossings with the white, 

 lilac and deef> violet, do not succeed. Are there black or blue 

 roses 7 It is useless to talk of it by graftings on various stalks. 

 Those never aft'ect the colors. Hybrids, if anything, may do it. 

 The Italian horticulturalist, Velaresi, first modified roses; he was 

 an amateur. 



By mixing the deepest colored Chinese nacarat roses, they obtain 

 very deep purple roses; we can hardly hope to come nearer to 

 black than that. 



A great noise was made lately about the growth of a black 

 rose. M. Alphonso Karr asked the learned gardener of the Lux- 

 embourg about it, who remarked, that the black rose existed in 

 the journals only. I regret, said Mr. Karr, that I do not know 

 the inventor of the blue rose, for I would have recorded it after 

 the namesof Jules Janin, who did invent the blue pink, of Madame 



