MERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
87 
be enabled to reconcile the most inveterate 
enemies, and make friends with whom he 
pleased, gain the affections and cure the dis¬ 
eases of whom he listed. When they cut 
this plant it was always done when neither 
the sun or moon was visible, and they poured 
honey and honeycomb on the earth as an 
atonement for robbing it of so precious an 
herb. 
The Greeks called it “ The Sacred Herb," 
Juno’s tears, and Dovewort; and it was with 
this plant only that they cleansed the festival 
table of Jupiter before any great solemnity 
took place, and hence, according to Pliny, 
the name Verbena is derived. It was also 
one of the plants which was dedicated to the 
Goddess of Beauty. Venus the victorious 
wore a crown of Myrtle interwoven with 
Verbena. 
The Romans continued the use of this 
plant in their sacred rites, sweeping their 
temples and cleansing their altars with it, 
and sprinkling holy water with the branches. 
They also hollowed or purified their houses 
with it to keep off evil spirits. Their am¬ 
bassadors or heralds at arms, wore crowns 
of it when they went to announce war or 
give defiance to their enemies; and which is 
thus noticed by Drayton : 
“ A wreath of Verbena heralds wear, 
Amongst our gardens named. 
Being sent that dreadful news to bear, 
Offensive war proclaimed.” 
Virgil mentions it as one of the charms 
in use: 
Bring running water, bind those altars round 
With fillets, and with Vervain strew the ground.” 
The Druids, both in Gaul and Britain, re¬ 
garded the Vervain with the same venera¬ 
tion which they bestowed on the Misleto, and 
like the Magi of the East, they offered sacri¬ 
fices to the earth before they cut this plant 
in the Spring, which was a ceremony of 
great pomp, Pliny tells us that the Druids 
made use of it in casting lots, and in drawing 
omens, and in other pretended magical arts : 
“ Dark superstition’s whisper dread 
Debarr’d the spot to vulgar tread ; 
1 For there,’ she said, ‘ did fays resort, 
And satyrs hold their sylvan court, 
By moonlight tread their mystic maze. 
And blast the rash beholder’s gaze ’ ” 
Walter Scott. 
The Druids held their power through the 
superstition of the people, and as they were 
great pretenders to magic and divination 
they excited the admiration, and took advan¬ 
tage of the ignorance and credulity of man¬ 
kind : for by these arts they pretended to 
work miracles and to exhibit astonishing ap¬ 
pearances in nature as well as to penetrate 
into the counsels of heaven. 
Divested of these pretended powers, there 
is no doubt but that the Druids were better 
acquainted with the medicinal properties of 
herbs than any other class of men in their 
day since ; their residences being in the re¬ 
cesses of mountains, groves, and woods, 
where vegetable productions were constant¬ 
ly courting their attention, it is natural to 
suppose that they would in some measure 
become acquainted with the qualities of 
plants in general. That the Druids of Gaul 
and Britain applied themselves to this study, 
and made great use of herbs for medical 
purposes, we have sufficient evidence, since 
we learn from scattered hints in Pliny’s Na¬ 
tural History, that they sometimes extracted 
the juice of herbs and plants, by bruising 
and steeping them in cold water; and 
sometimes by infusion in wine ; that they 
made potions and decoctions by boiling them 
in water ; and we learn also that they fre¬ 
quently dried certain herbs before infusing 
them, and that they administered some 
plants by fumigations, and practised the art 
of making saives and ointments of vegetables, 
for which they had great renown even at 
Rome, to which city they exported the Ver¬ 
vain, and it was hence called Britannica. 
Although so many ages have passed away 
since the Druids and their pretended spells 
have been abolished, yet we frequently meet 
with lingering sparks of their imagined light 
among the vulgar, who upon every occasion 
cling to superstition. 
Madame de Latour tells us that the shep¬ 
herds in the northern provinces of France 
still continue to gather the Vervain under 
different faces of the moon, using certain 
mysterious ejaculations known only to them¬ 
selves, while in the act of collecting this 
herb, by whose assistance they attempt to 
cure not only their fellow-servants, but their 
masters also, of various complaints, and they 
profess to charm both the flocks and the rural 
belles with this plant. 
The Germans, to this day, present a hat of 
Veivain to the new-married bride, as if to 
put her under the protection of Venus victo¬ 
rious, which is evidently the remains of 
ancient customs .—Floricultural Cabinet. 
THE PINK. 
At the termination of another season, and 
while the blooms of 1854 are fresh on our 
memory, we will briefly record our impres¬ 
sions of what has been doing with the Pink 
since our last notice in the Florist for 
August, 1853 ; and this is the more neces¬ 
sary as there are so many new vat ieties com¬ 
ing under notice for the first time. 
The early blooms this season, had a ten¬ 
dency to be rough on the edge, and but 
imperfectly laced. As the season advanced 
they bloomed much better. The display of 
this flower at the Royal Botanic Society’s 
July exhibition was the best of the season, 
the flowers being generally as good as we 
remember to have seen them, being well 
laced, of good size, and without confused 
centers. Allowing for the influence the 
season has exercised on some varieties, our 
opinions given a twelvemonth since have 
proved tolerably correct. In speaking, then, 
of Mr. Bragg’s flowers, we placed James 
Hogg as the best, and it undoubtedly is, al¬ 
though the lacing is occasionally too faint. 
The blooms of this variety exhibited at 
Basingstoke by Mr. Surman, gardener to J. C. 
Roberts, Esq., Twyford, near Winchester, 
showed as perfect a Pink as we remember to 
have seen. Dr. Maclean’s flowers have ex- 
ceededour expectation, having all—with the 
exception of Great Criterion, the plants of 
which suffered so much during the long se¬ 
vere winter, that they never finally recovered 
—proved most satisfactory. New Criterion 
is a most superb flower, and opens dark pur¬ 
ple, which changes to rosy purple as it ages, 
and is in either state a charming flower, full 
and smooth on the edges. Brunette, a hea¬ 
vily laced dark variety, is also a bold, noble 
flower, and has the largest petal and widest 
marking of any flower we know, and heavi¬ 
ly laced as it is, there is a large space of 
white in each of the large, broad petals. 
Adonis, another of Dr. Maclean’s seedlings, 
is a chaste smooth flower, very clear in its 
markings, petals smooth and laced with soft, 
msy purple. Mrs. Norman, as shown by 
Mr. Baker, of Woolwich, has a very fine 
petal, and is altogether a first class flower. 
Hale’s FieldMarshal and Hale’s Mr. Weedon, 
are two useful evenly-laced flowers. Tur¬ 
ner’s Richard Andrews is a large well-laced 
flower, and may be termed a broad petaled 
Whipper-in, as it resembles that variety, but 
has a wider and smoother petal. Duke of 
Devonshire is a flower with a smooth well¬ 
shaped petal, as full as Great Britain, and, 
like that variety, has rather too many petals, 
but its size can be reduced by leaving plenty 
of buds. Looker’s John Stevens and Juliet 
are promising flowers, the former a dark 
purple and the latter a light purple laced 
| variety ; also Mr. Hoyle and Mr. Hobbs, red 
laced flowers of good average quality, and 
good exhibition flowers. Norman’s Napoleon 
is very dark laced, a striking flower with a 
large bold petal, but is rather thin, Colches¬ 
ter Cardinal has proved a fine flower, with 
first-rate properties, having a very smooth 
stout petal. 
Of older varieties, Maclean’s Criterion 
stands at the head ; it has been very fine this 
season, and fuller than it is often seen. 
Bragg’s Jupiter has been very fine, and Pre¬ 
sident and Purple Perfection have bee# 
shown good. Optima, Ada, Kate, Mrs. Wolf, 
Sarah, Lord Charles Wellesley, Arthur, 
Beauty of Salt Hill, Constance, Esther. 
Sappho, Lola Montes, Richard Smith, Titus, 
Lord Valentia, Perfection, and Hurlstone’s 
Fanny, have all been exhibited in very good 
condition, and are generally very good flow¬ 
ers. We have seen a few yearlings that 
possess excellent properties, but refrain from 
enumerating them until another season has 
confirmed their being dissimilar, and desir¬ 
able new varieties, as they appear at first to 
be. Some of the best flowers we have had 
were produced from plants wintered in small 
pots and planted out in spring, and, consider¬ 
ing the small space they occupy during the 
winter, and there being no risk of losing 
them should the season be unfavorable, this 
plan should be more generally adopted. 
[London Florist and Fruitist. 
Dried Peaches.—Peaches as usually dried 
are a very good fruit; but can be made vast¬ 
ly better if treated in the right way. Last 
season the recipe which had quite a circula¬ 
tion in the papers of drying the fruit by a 
stove after halving it and sprinkling a little 
sugar into the cavity left by the extracted 
pits, was tried in our family. The fruit was 
found to be most excellent; better to the 
taste of nine out of ten persons than any 
peach preserves, by far. The peaches, how 
ever, were good ones before drying ; for it 
is doubtful whether poor fruit can be made 
goocLby that process, or any other. 
rPrarie Farmer. 
Coloring Corn. —A French farmer has 
succeeded in giving to maize or Indian corn 
any color he chooses by the following plan : 
Having received from China a specimen of a 
pearl white color, the grains of which were 
very small but very beautiful, he was desir¬ 
ous to obtain the same grain, but of other 
colors. For this purpose he planted by the 
side of some the American maize of a red 
color, and the result was a crop of grain ol 
a pink tint, with some of a bluish, and others 
of a green color. He made a similar experi¬ 
ment with the maize of Tucarora, the grain 
of which is as white as Carolina rice, and he 
thus obtained a crop, the ears of which were 
about fourteen inches in length, and the 
grains of a blue color. Another time he 
planted some maize of the color of amber 
among some of the black maize of Syria. 
The ears attained the length of twenty-two 
inches, and the grain was of different colors. 
The yellow maize, on being planted near 
some of the brown maize of Central Ameri¬ 
ca, produced some of dark brown color, 
which ripens eight days sooner than the other 
sorts. The farmer now possesses one hun¬ 
dred and fifty-three different varieties of 
maize, and his object in continuing his ex¬ 
periments is not only to change the color at 
will, but also to obtain varieties which will 
ripen earlier, as well as larger and longer 
ears, and thus increase the produce.— Ex. 
Cure For Scratches. —Mix one ounce of 
chloride of lime and one quart of water; 
wash the parts well; after which apply 
white lead, ground in oil. This has never 
failed to cure. 
