1882 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
419 
top end of a small box, and put the lower end of tlie 
funnel through in to the bottle placed in the box, and fixed 
TASMANIAN RAIN GUAGE. 
the whole in an exposed situation. The coverbeing put 
on with hinges, is just opened, and at a glance I see 
what rain has fallen.”—As a glazier's diamond is not al¬ 
ways at hand, you can make a scale that will answer very 
well, by pasting a narrow strip of paper lengthwise on 
the bottle ; use flour paste. By “ Chemist,” he means 
apothecary or druggist, who uses a graduated glass, to 
measure the water. You can find such a glass at any 
doctor’s office, or druggist's shop. You can mark the 
hight at which each 3| oz. of water stands, with a pen¬ 
cil. If you go over the pencil mark with ink, and 
then varnieh the paper, the scale will be more permanent. 
The Doctor’s Talks. 
There are a few kinds of fruit yet to be described, 
some of which you will be especially interested in. as 
soon as frosts come, and those perfect days, in which 
boys, and girls, and the squirrels, enjoy the pleasures of 
a day in the woods at nutting. 
“ But are Nuts Fruits?” 
some of you may ask. They are not fruit in the language 
of commerce, or of the shops, though botanically they 
are Fruits. You will recollect that it was stated, some 
time ago, that the fruit was the ripened pistil, and what¬ 
ever remained attached to it. I wonder if you thought 
to examine the chestnut trees when they were in bloom 
last July. The chestnut is the latest of all our forest 
trees to come into flower, and it is, I think, a most beau¬ 
tiful sight, when it hangs out its abundant whitish tas¬ 
sels. I have heard persons predict that there would be 
an abundance of chestnuts, as the trees were so full of 
bloom. They did not know that those showy flowers 
Fig. 1.—CHESTNUT LEAVES AND FLOWERS. 
were merely staminate, and that the pistillate ones, those 
that would become fruit, were quite different in appear¬ 
ance. These showy blossoms of the chestnut, consist of 
many little flowers placed upon a long slender stem; 
they have a 6-parted calyx, and 6 to 12 stamens. The 
fertile, or pistillate are sometimes at the axils of the 
leaves, but most generally at the base of those catkins 
that are nearest the end of the branches. Figure 1 
shows one of these catkins, with a cluster of pistillate 
flowers at the base. In fig. 4 you have, in the right-hand 
I upper part of the engraving, these clusters somewhat 
I enlarged. The clusters usually contain three flowers 
like that shown at the upper left-hand. Those slender 
| bodies at the top of the flower are imperfect stamens, 
j not pistils, as you might at first suppose ; the pistils are 
1 very fine, and bristle-like, as seen in the cut open flower 
below. These flowers are in a scaly cup, which, later in 
the season, grows into the well known prickly chestnut- 
bur, that carefully guards the nuts until they are ripe, 
when it breaks open in two or four places, and lets them 
fall. If the bur is so rough without, it is soft and downy 
within ; it holds the nuts so closely, that they have tG 
shape themselves according to their number. When 
there are three, the middle one is flattened on both 
sides, and the outer ones have a flat and a rounded sur¬ 
face; occasionally a bur will have but one nut, when it 
is equally rounded on all sides. 
The Oak is Closely Belated 
to the chestnut, though they do not look much alike. 
The staminate flowers of the oaks are not so showy as 
those of the chestnut, and in looser catkins ; the pistil¬ 
late flowers are also surrounded by a scaly involucre, 
but they are solitary. At the left hand of figure 3, is 
shown an enlarged flower, and one cut open. When the 
nut or acorn grows, the involucre, as a general thing, 
does not elongate, but remains as a more or less shallow- 
hard cup In the Over-cup Oak. and some foreign oaks, 
the cup does increase however, to partly or nearly cover 
the nut. The oak blooms mfich earlier than the chestnut, 
some of them, like the White Oak, ripen the acorn in the 
autumn of the same year, while others, such as the Black 
Oak, take two years to mature them. 
There is found from Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and 
more abundantly in the Southern States, 
The Chinquapin, or Dwarf Cliestnut- 
It is a small tree, rarely 20 feet high, with flowers sim¬ 
ilar to those of the Chestnut, but the pistillate flowers 
are solitary, and consequently the bur contains but a 
single nut, which, not being pressed by others, is always 
rounded, and looks much like an acorn without its cup. 
Those of you who live where they are abundant, may 
well gather them, for they are, though small, very sweet. 
Beech Nuts 
Very abundant some years, should not be left entirely 
to the squirrels and the pigs. They are small, but you 
can, by searching, find certain trees that yield much 
larger and finer nuts than usual. You have no doubt 
noticed the little round heads of staminate flowers, that 
come in May. The fertile flowers are iike those of the 
chestnut, but there are never more than two in an invo¬ 
lucre, which ripens into a prickly bur. The seeds are 
sharply three-cornered, and sometimes there is but one 
in a bur, when it grows much larger than usual. 
Walnut, Buttei-mit, and Hickory, 
These, like the oak and chestnut, have their sterile 
flowers in catkins; the fertile ones are solitary, or a few 
together on a short stem. The fruit is very different 
from the chestnut and acorn, as it is not surrounded by 
anything like a bur or cup. In order to understand these, 
the walnut, etc., you must remember how the peach was 
explained, or it may be well to turn to the August Talk, 
and read that portion over again. You will there see 
that the peach is the ripened pistil, or rather, the lower 
part of the pistil, the ovary ; you will see that in grow¬ 
ing and ripening, the inner part of the ovary becomes 
hard, and forms the peach stone, and the outer portion, 
the flesh of the peach. In the Walnut and Hickory, a 
similar change takes place ; a part of the ovary becomes 
the shell of the nut, and another part becomes its husk. 
In the Black Walnut, and Butternut, this husk remains 
attached to the nut; in all the Hickories, it, when ripe, 
breaks away from the nut, and falls off in four pieces. 
One young friend asks me to tell him about 
Tlie Pea-uut or Ground-nut. 
This is also a fruit, though it does grow under-ground. 
It was described a year or two ago, but not in the Boy’s 
Fig. 3.— PISTILLATE FLOWERS OF OAK AND ACORNS. 
and Girl’s Columns, and the young folks may not have 
noticed it. The Peanut has a very curious way of man¬ 
aging. The plant produces its little flowers, which 
bloom, and the petals fall away. Then the slender stem 
which held the flower, and now holds the pistil, begins to 
grow longer, and point downward, and the result is, that 
it pushes the pistil or young pod down out of sight, and 
here, under-ground, it completes its growth, and ripens 
its seeds. The Pea-nut pod differs from the pod of the 
ordinary pea, in being much thicker, and in not readily 
splitting apart at the seam; where the two halves of the 
pod join. Anyone of you can see the manner of growth 
in the Pea-nut. by planting a few seeds. These must be 
taken out of the shells before planting, which must not 
be done before danger of frost is over. Ho not 
make the mistake of planting baked pea-nuts, as that 
would beasbad as that of the unfortunate man wlia 
planted popped corn, and was disappointed in the result. 
A Farm Museum.— “F.,” who is tired of col¬ 
lecting postage stamps, asks what he can collect at 
home about the farm that will be interesting. Farms 
vary greatly; some are by the sea or salt water rivers; 
others are near lakes or fresh water streams; and others 
are far away from either. One can collect a great 
variety of interesting objects, wherever he may be. We 
do not think much of collections, merely for the sake of 
accumulating things. Collections to show what grows 
in and about the farm are of use, and we wish that every 
MAGNIFIED. 
boy and girl could have a Farm Museum, showing every 
kind of rock, every kind of wood, with the leaves, flow¬ 
ers, and fruit of each tree, and every smaller plant, 
with its seeds, that is found wild upon the farm. 
