i88s. 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



A PUZZLING FLOWER. 



All my young friends no doubt enjoy puzzles, 

 especially when they command the answer end. 

 One plant which grows near my climbing place, 

 is as good a puzzle to the eye, as any met in 

 the books. It is a Wild Violet with blue oder- 



Mr. TreecKmber Introduces Himself. 



To the young readers of PopUL.vu Garden- 

 ing I present myself as the man who lives in 

 the tree tops, that is, some of the time. From 

 this, do not make out that I am some odd 

 individual who cannot live as other folks live, 

 but must climb and climb like a squirrel, in or- 

 der to be contented. It is true that in my boy- 

 hood days, I had a great passion for treeclimb- 

 ing ; my love of trees, the strange scenes to be 

 met in their tops, and their products often 

 leading me up into them. I think it was the 

 ones that held mellow apples, luscious cherries 

 or sweet nuts that attracted me the oftenest. 

 Now my climbing is of a kind, that better be- 

 comes legs and arras, which have lost much of 

 the gripping power for tree trunks which they 

 once possessed. 



I will explain. In a grove to the rear of the 

 house in which I live, is a large Walnut tree, 

 with dark furrowed bark and a spreading head. 

 At about eighteen feet from the ground, in this 

 tree, is an arrangement of branches, which 

 years ago suggested to me the idea of laying a 

 floor upon them. To have a sitting place, a 

 real arbor up in the Walnut, w'as a thought not 

 to be put aside and it was soon built. The floor 

 which is ten by thirteen feet in size, is enclosed 

 by a railing three feet high, for safety. To 

 reach the platform, a winding stairway was 

 built connecting it with the ground. This also 

 had a side rail to make ascending and descend- 

 ing easier. With such a delightful bower in 

 mid-air, I think you can easily understand how 

 it is that I am a somewhat noted tree-climber, 

 here where I am known. 



During warm weather, every day finds me 

 for some hours, in my "perch" in the tree 

 top. Here I read, write and enjoy the rare 

 pleasures of the spot. I often have visitor 

 tree-climbers, too, — you may be sure this is a 

 place that pleases the boys and girls to visit; 

 they are always welcome. The birds also come 

 near, for they have learned that the occupants 

 of this " nest " are their friends. 



There is another reason why my young 

 friends like this place besides the novelty of its 

 situation. It is because I am always ready to 

 tell them about what I see, and have seen in 

 the beautiful book which Nature holds open to 

 our gaze. They say that I see so many inter- 

 esting things which their eyes miss entirely. 

 So I loan them the use of my eyes, as it were, 

 and show how they may employ their own to 

 better advantage. 



Now in my tree perch, or in my study I can 

 never expect to receive more than a small 

 number of visitors. But the publishers of 

 Popular Gardening, have very kindly asked 

 me to invite their thousands of young readers 

 to my quarters, through their handsome paper, 

 which I gladly do. So in the space they allow 

 me to occupy each month, I will talk of flow- 

 ers, botany and other matters relating to natural 

 history. I hope by this means, to interest you in 

 many of the beautiful and curious things which 

 surround us in this world of ours, and which, 

 having eyes we should cultivate them to see. 

 Timothy Treeclimbkr. 



Puzzling Violet Flowers. 



less flowers, a drawing of one of which I here 

 show. These, like all violets, blossom early in 

 the spring, but they seldom give seed. 



A month or two after the spring blooms 

 are gone, many large seed-pods like the one 

 shown at c, strangely appear on the plants. 

 These could not come from the spring flowers, 

 for it is too long since. More than that, the 

 seed-pods keep increasing in numbers steadily 

 until fall ; each good sized plant yielding hundreds 

 of these all full of white seeds. Where do the 

 pods and seeds come from is the puzzle? for we 

 know that true seeds — and these are true seeds 

 — can only be the outgrowth of flowers, that 

 have organs of reproduction. For my summer 

 visitors, young and old, during the last season, 

 I here had a standing puzzle, and rarely was it 

 made out. 



But this puzzle like all others is easy enough 

 when you know it. Here is the answer: This 

 Violet, in common with some other, has the re- 

 markable quality of yielding, aside from their 

 showy flowers of spring, others that are so 

 small they can only be seen by very sharp look- 

 ing. Figure b shows such a one drawn to life- 

 size. These minute flowers never open, the 

 process of fertilization taking place within the 

 closed parts. On this account botanists call 

 them by the rather long name of Cleistogamous 

 flowers. While there is no sign of a flower 

 about them to the eye, careful dissection and 

 the use of a magnifying glass, reveals the 

 stamens and pistils clearly. 



What looks very strange is, that the flowers, 

 as at a which one would natuially look to for 

 seed, rarely produce it, while these tiny ones 

 like figure b, completely hidden by the sepals, 

 yield large plump seeds that grow freely when 

 planted. Why all this is so, unless to puzzle 

 us, and lead us to examine things closely, is 

 more than can be told to his young friends by 

 Treecli.mber. 



Dull In Childhood, Not Always Dull. 



We heard a business man who had recently 

 employed a new boy, for choring about his 

 store, say, " He is not as bright as the boy I 

 had before him, but he will make a smarter 

 man. He is slow, but sure. " A bright child is 

 apt to rely too much upon his or her ability to 

 comprehend any matter easily, and thus loses 

 the benefit of the close application, which is a 

 necessity to a dull child. But this training of 

 the dull child, to labor hard for whatever is 



acquired, often enables him to outstrip his 

 brighter companion, in the long run. 



Sir Isaac Newton was known as a dunce in his early 

 school (lays. One day, the "bright boy'" of the 

 school gave him a kick wliich caused him severe 

 pain. Tlie insult stung young Newton to the quick, 

 and he resolved to make himself felt and respected 

 by improved scholarship. He applied himself 

 resolutely to study, and ere long stood in bis cla.ss 

 above the boy who had kicked him, and ultimately 

 became the first scholar in the school. 



Oliver Goldsndth was the butt of ridicule at 

 school for his duliness His relatives, teachers and 

 schoolmates ail told him that he wa-s a fool, which 

 verdict he did not dispute, but took good-humor- 

 edly. And yet by close applir>ation, he made up 

 for his youthful dullness ana became famous. 



.\dam Clark, the great connueiitator on the Bible, 

 was pronounced by his father to be a *' grievous 

 dunce." 



Sir Walter Scott was a dull boy, and even at 

 college went by the name of " The Great Block- 

 head." But he wasted no lime on trifles, and 

 pursuing a course of study that he loved, was per- 

 severing and methodical. His knowledge increased, 

 until it lay hke a great volume in his mind. When 

 he began to make use of that knowledge, society 

 gave him another name, "The Great Magician." 



A Provoking Parrot. 



The remarkable power parrots have of 

 imitating human speech, gives them an inter- 

 est possessed by few others, of the lower 

 creatures. While in a measure they are docile 

 and affectionate, often they are capricious and 

 prove very annoying, by bad behavior when 

 good deportment would much better become 

 them. The following incident shows, that a 

 talking parrot is not to be trusted too far in 

 good company. 



" Children's Day " was observed in a church at 

 Rexford Flats. New York, recently, and the room 

 was decorated for the occasion . There were not 

 only Howers on the walls, but canaries sang from 

 their little gilt cages, hanging here and there among 

 the evergreens. One lady, not having a canarj-. 

 brought her only pet bird, a parrot, which she 

 thought would add to the looks of the room. The 

 parrot behaved very well for a few hours, and was 

 an object of interest to the boys and girls, who 

 crowded round the cage. Later the parrot fell 

 from grace, and became very naughty indeed. 

 When a little boy mounted the stage to speak a 

 piece, the parrot began to mock him. much to the 

 annoyance of the lad, and amusement of the con- 

 gregation. Finally the parrot screeched out, 

 ■'Hey. j'ou little rascal!" which cau.sed the boy to 

 go crying to his seat, and threw the audience into 

 an uproar. The offending bird was taken out of 

 church in deep disgrace. 



Not Clear. 



The feats of modern engineers, and the inven- 

 tions of modern thinkers as shown in railroads 

 and their equipments, look strange enough to 

 those who are unfamiliar with them. So it was 

 with the man who opposed Stephenson, when 

 he first set forth his wonderful invention. 



" Suppose that when a train is going at the 

 rate of ten miles an hour, a cow should get on 

 the track, wouldn't that be very embarrassing?" 



'■ Aye," returned Stephenson " very embar- 

 rassing — for the cow." 



At the time of the building of the Cincinnati 

 Central Railroad, the civil engineer found some 

 difficulty in tunneling a mountain on the bank of 

 the Cumberland River. That river is now spanned 

 by a fine bridge leading to the tunnel, but there 

 was? then no sign of the structure. 



One morning a Tenuesse "corn cracker" rowed 

 across the river and engaged in conversation with 

 the engineer. 



" Yon seem to be scatterin' dirt and gravel round 

 here pretty peart." 



" Well, yes; we're getting through the hill quite 

 lively." 



" Who's payio' for all this fuss?" 



" The city of Cincinnati." 



" Well, it must cost a heap of money. What's it 

 fur, anyhow?" 



The engineer explained that he was engaged in 

 building a tunnel, and further that it was cheaper 

 to bore a hole through the mountain for the cars to 

 run in than to level it. or make a " cut " down the 

 grade. 



The native took it all in, and then queried, — 



"So the steam-kyars is goin' to come right 

 through this tunnel away north?" 



"Yes, that's just it " 



" Well, major, that's askin' too much for a man 

 to believe," said the cracker, " that every time 

 that ere iron boss of yourn jumps across the river, 

 he's goin 'to strike this little hole right squar' an' 

 far. No, sir; I can't swaller it." 



