SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 541 



A Birthday Gift. — A custom was once in vogue in Switzerland which could 

 be turned to valuable account in this country, if generally adopted. When a 

 child was born, a fruit tree was planted at some place along the highway, the 

 fruit of which was always free to the passer-by. The pride of the parent 

 would always be to plant some choice specimen of its kind,' and so highly 

 esteemed was this custom, that no one would injure the tree in any respect, but 

 rather, if possible, promote its growth. The child, when of sufficient age, 

 would feel a pride in nursing the tree, and also, realizing its ownership, feel 

 identified with the country, and imbibe from its earliest recollection a spirit of 

 patriotism. If it is more blessed to give than to receive, then there can be 

 no simpler and easier way to bring the child earlier into possession of this 

 blessedness, than by such a gift of fruit, which may be as acceptable, at least 

 to the wayfarers, as a cup of cold water to the thirsty traveler. 



Boys and Flowers. — "Uncle Mark," in Rural New Yorker, says a good 



thing for boys and boys' fathers to read : 



Some of the boys may think they are a little too smart and manly to plant 

 and tend flowers. Some boys seem to think that the growing of flowers is 

 regular girls' work and not suited to men. They make a great mistake 

 when they so decide. The great trouble with most of these men who seem 

 so hard and stern and make work so monotonous is that they have never 

 cultivated any of the finer and better feelings. They leave all such work to 

 the "women folks" and then growl because their wives and daughters 

 want flowers and other pretty things. I want my boys to make men of a 

 different stamp. We want all the flowers and pretty places we can have. 

 Never make fun of the girls for working in the flower garden. You will 

 show yourself more of a man by helping them with the harder part of the 

 work, or even tending a few flowers yourself. Some boys that I know have 

 no sisters. Mother would like to have a flower-bed in front of the house, but 

 father is too busy, sometimes, to do the work. Now, boys, put yourselves 

 on mother's side and see that the work is done this spring. With a little 

 extra work you can make the place so beautiful that father will notice it and 

 wish he had done the work himself. 



BOTANICAL NOTES. 



Variations in Cultivated Plants. — W. W. Tracy, before the Society for 

 the promotion of Agricultural Science, remarked: "Plants of close botanical 

 relationship tend to vary in form along parallel lines, the different shapes of 

 our cultivated varieties being, in each case, the result of the preservation and 

 development of some of the most useful of the many forms common to the 

 genus." Turning to the melon family (Cucurbitaceae), for instance, "we find 



