103 



THE GARDENER'S MONTH L Y 



{J»»c, 



tho sweet water Lily. It wjis mjirked Xym- 

 phnea djiitata. The l)otanic rjanlcii i)rf)per is di- 

 vided into sections for the testiiiu of various 

 thinsis. There is a vegetable testiiifj ground. 

 Lettuce, cal)bacre9 and such tliinjis, were 

 growins; toj^ethcr in preat variety, all neatly la- 

 belled for the instruction of whomsoever niifjlit ' 

 look on. Then there were all sorts of plants ' 

 used in the art.s, in commerce, in medicine, and | 

 in the various j)ursuits of man, all neatly labelled. 

 These labels are of ditl'crent colors so as to 

 indicate the different uses of the plant. A green I 

 color may indicate a poisonous plant, a yellow ' 

 an edible one, and so forth ; and charts explain- j 

 inc the color are freely placed alunit the grounds. '\ 



It was )>leasant to notice in Paris how her 

 horticulturist-s and agriculturists and her men of 

 science generally, are honored. [Streets, squares, 

 public buildings are named for them ; and thus, 

 while you may be drinking from the Fountain 

 Cuvier, you are reminded of how great were the 

 benefits which the. science of these great men 

 conferred on the people at large. 



1 have no disposition to underrate America. 

 Indeed, after careful comparison of all sorts of 

 things, I feel that in very many things we are 

 far superior to Europe, and in many things, too, 

 in wl ich we are very apt to underrate ourselves; 

 but in this matter of honoring science and the 

 useful arts by public respect to its professors, I 

 must say we are a very long way behind the 

 French people. 



A Small Fraud. — " For ten cents or three 

 for a quarter," the brokers and bankers of Phila- 

 delphia, near the •' Exchange," were purchasing 

 sticks of the common Sweet Gum, one day last 

 April, on the assurance of the street vender that 

 it " bore a large blue flower, so deliciously 

 scented, which would burst into beauty in one 

 week after the stick was planted, and scent the 

 whole house from cellar to carrot with a deli- 

 cious perfuuie, and which the buyer would'not 

 be without for SlOO." 



The writer of this being invited to " invest," 

 spoiled the fun by incaulicnisly observing : " 1 

 will give you one minute by the watch to leave, 

 or you shall be arrested for swindling these peo- 

 ple." "Without a word, the vender gathered his 

 bundle of sticks and departed, to the astonishment 

 of the crowd, who, with the purchased treasm-es 

 in their hand, looked on in wonder, and some in- 

 quired what it meant, and whether their " choice 

 allitrator plants" were not what they ought to be? 

 Menliouing the matter to his Honor, Mayor 



Stokle}', he said if the writer of this would prose- 

 cute he would send a detective to buy a branch, 

 for he did not want comi>laints so nuirh as 

 evidence of guilt. This struck us as very reason- 

 able, and a detective went along till we found 

 the lively young man sitting d(twn on a corner 

 attempting no business, but merel}' answi ring 

 questions put to him. Of course we stood back 

 while the detective went to work, but in spite of 

 all encouragement the flowers would not be 

 ''blue" nor would they be "scented." The per- 

 fume of the business had vanished, and then, 

 as the detective reported, tliat "Sam Msuliera 

 spoiled the business, for when he asked the name 

 of the plant and the vender said it wa-s the 

 Florida Alligator jilant," Sam, who seems to 

 have smelled the alligator in that wood pile, 

 " wanted to know what was its name in New 

 Jersey?" So we walked away without our 

 man. 



On our way to the Mayor's otlice we passed a 

 hardware store wherein one of our little folks had 

 exchanged a quarter dollar for a pocket knife 

 " warranted pure steel," the blade of which bent 

 like a piece of pewter ; further on was a store in 

 which beautiful fabrics were displayed and " only 

 50 cents a yard" noted thereon, and which our 

 l)etter half thought she bought, only it was not 

 from that piece, "but just the same," as the polite 

 attendant assured hep, — but which proved in the 

 end to be a much more worthless article ; again we 

 came to the otlice of a periodical especially " down 

 on humbugs," which advertises that it has "a 

 circulation of twenty thousand copies," when it 

 is well known to those in the secret it has not 

 five thousand ; and finally as we were musing on 

 these things, during our street walk, we came on 

 the poster of the great showman, and from the 

 pictured lips we heard the voice "if you give 25 

 cents worth for 25 cents, it is honest. If people 

 are fools enough to believe they are to get a dol- 

 lar's worth for a quarter, it is no business of 

 yours!" AVe did not stop to decide this very 

 queslionable bit of morality; but it was clear 

 that if this street man gave " a slick worth ten 

 cents, for ten cents, and his buyers were fools 

 enough to believe it was worth SlUO," there was 

 no (litrerence that we could see between him, 

 Banunn, newsjiapers, and tradespeoj>le gen- 

 erally; and we were i-ather gbid than otherwise, 

 that the ten cent swindle got ofi"on that occasion, 

 while so many dollar ones Houiished everywhere 

 around, and were held to be quite respectable be- 

 sides. The curiously corked bark of the branches 



