1882.1 AND HORTICULTURIST. 55 



EDJTQRIAL NOTES. Ig^age of woe thereat, and wish them all abol- 



1 ished. But they are not all so by any means, 



and where they are failures it is the defective 

 STOMATA.-The College Speculum states that a , ^lanagement. and not that the principle is 

 student of the Lansing Agricultural College, i ^^^^^ The fact that some have proved institu- 

 found that the upper surface of a leaf of man- ^^^^^g of which the whole nation is proud, shows 

 gold, Calendula officinalis, of four square inches ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ necessities that should be encour- 

 contained 27,008 stomata, the lower 40,512. ^^^^ r^^^^ failures only show that education ia 



Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- j like any other business in which the failures ar& 

 PHiA. — For the ensuing year the officers elected j always more numeroias than the successes. It 



were: President, Dr. Joseph Leidy; First Vice 

 President, W. S. Vaux ; Second Vice President, 

 Thomas Meehan ; "Recording Secretary, Dr. E. J. 

 Nolan ; Corresponding Secretary, Dr. G. H. Horn; 

 Treasurer, W. S. Henszey. Dr. Euschenberger, 



is a pleasure to know that the Missouri college 

 at Columbia is following in the track of its suc- 

 cessful sisters. By judicious management, over 

 $200,000 have been realized out of a part of their 

 college lands, and in all probability the balance 



for twelve years President, but who declined a will bring enough to make a fund of nearly half 

 re-nomination, was added to the councillors. ! a million dollars. We happen to know that 



i among the sciences, botany and horticulture — 

 How Trees Spread Over Cleared Land— If | ^^-^^ ^^^ ^^^^ science-have always commended 

 a large tract of land is cleared for culture, and, j themselves strongly to the management, and we 

 after some years it is neglected, it is not long , ^^^ therefore always glad to hear of the financial 

 before forest trees spring up all over it. This is I g^^^^^g ^f ^^^ Institution, 

 a well known fact, especially in the Southern 



States. It is not that the seeds are already in the 1 Flowers of a Fig. — Talking to some young 

 earth, or they would have sprouted and been j folks recently about flowers and fruit, and re- 

 destroyed by cultural operations ; but the seeds j marking that no one could produce an instance 

 are carried there by various outside agencies. I of any fruit without flowers, a young lady said 

 Pine seeds for instance are blown some distance that surely there were no flowers on the fig, for 

 by wind or on to the feathers or backs of animals, [ her parents had a plant growing in a tub for 

 and are dropped often at long distances from the , years, alwaj's producing fruit, but it never had a 

 parent tree. Heavier seeds with acorns and nuts j flower on it. But there is flower even to the fig, 

 are carried by birds or animals as food, and a few j hundreds of them inside a single fig, for it is inside 

 escape eating, and then grow, and in numberless of what is popularly called the fig that the flowers 

 ways get a chance to grow a long distance from j are found. As we told our young friend, if the 

 the original tree. lu a few years, according to fig is cut open in an early stage, and the interior 

 their kind, these again produce seed and form face examined with a common pocket lens, it 

 new centres of distribution, till, in say one hun- \ -will be found completely walled with little flow- 

 dred and fifty years forests may appear as many j ers, having each the usual parts of fructification, 

 miles away from an original forest centre. If j This also may be further remembered when 

 however anything happens to keep the trees from examining the interior of a ripe fig, for the ma- 

 growing high enough to mature seed, such as the j ture seed will be found, such seed having been 

 browsing of animals, or prairie fires, extension j produced by a single flower. 

 from a centre could not go on. We thus see how \ q^^ t^^j^g however is true, they have not the 

 there are circumstances which sometimes favor flowers of ordinary plants, that is to say flowers 

 the extension, and sometimes restrict the forest that we can readily see and admire, as we can 

 ^^6^- the flowers we ordinarily cultivate for their beau- 



These views have been recently narrated by 

 the writer of this in papers on the "origin of 

 grassy prairies," and "on the timber line of high 

 mountains," but some recent inquiries make a 



tiful blossoms. Still they have many of them 

 beauty of form, especially in the foliage, and are 

 very popular on this account. They deserve 

 more than ordinary attention from the cultivator, 



repetition necessary. i because of their ease of culture, very few plants 



The University of Missouri.— Some of the | taking to neglect as kindly as they do. They are 



agricultural colleges have been great ftiilures, I especially valuable for room culture, perhaps from 



and the agricultural papers are full of the Ian- ' this very fact that they can stand abuse. There 



