338 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August. 
jbdys & (bums* (D®ranm 
The Doctor’s Talks. 
You will recollect that I began these “Talks ” about 
flowers and plants in May last, with the Buttercup, and 
since then have described several other flowers. I have 
tried to show you that, however unlike the Buttercup 
they appear, they resemble it in many points, and that 
they are all made upon the same general plan, but differ 
in details. It is this plan of the flower that I wish you 
to understand, and gave it in the first Talk. If you have 
forgotten the parts and their positions, you will do well 
to read the description of the Buttercup over again. 
When you understand the Buttercup, or any other 
flower thoroughly, you will know what to look for in all 
other flowers. It is true that some of the parts belong¬ 
ing to the Buttercup may not be found in all the flowers 
that you come across, but the parts that are present, 
will always be in the game position in relation to one 
another, that they are in that flower. You can notice in 
the fields, in the woods, by the road-side, and in the 
garden, flowers in great variety, and in outward appear- 
Fia! 3. 
Fig. 4. 
ance very unlike. If you were to go to a distant coun¬ 
try, to South America or Australia, you would find a 
great number of flowers, all very different from those at 
home, but the little .Buttercup has given you the key to 
them all. It has taught yon what parts to look for, and 
where to expect to find them. In the first Talk, I asked; 
What are Flowers For? 
These thousands of flowers all over the world, so dif¬ 
ferent in general appearance, yet really so much alike, 
are all engaged, so to 
speak, in doing the 
same thing. They are 
for an object, and that 
is, the continuation of 
the kind of plant that 
bears them. Some plants 
live for a single sea¬ 
son, and then die ; 
others die in the second 
summer, while others live on for many years, it may be, 
like some trees, for hundreds of years. But at some 
time, the longest lived die, and all sooner or later pre¬ 
pare for others of the same kind to take their places. 
This is Done by Seeds, 
and the whole object of the flower—of all flowers, in all 
their great variety, and often wonderful beauty, is to 
produce fruit, which contains the seeds. To go back 
once more to our Buttercup. We will, for convenience, 
bring this flower here again. In the very 
center, we have the little bodies (fig. 1. 
€,) called pistils, and just outside of 
these, the pollen-producing stamens, cl. 
After the pollen from the stamens has 
fallen upon the pistils, the stamens and 
all the other parts of the flower fall 
away, leaving only the pistils. You will 
recollect that each pistil (fig. 2,) contains 
an ovule, fig. 3, and this grows and be¬ 
comes a seed , while at the same time, 
the pistil itself grows larger, gets hard 
and dry, and ripens into a fruit. A 
fruit is not always pleasant to eat. 
The Fruit is (he Itipened Pistil, 
and whatever is attached to it. whether 
juicy as in the pear, or dry as in the 
hickory. The Buttercup produces a lit¬ 
tle, dry, one-seeded fruit. If you examine 
the pistil of the pea, you will find, instead 
of one, several ovules, and the pistil 
ripens into a fruit, the pod, which is tough 
and dry, with several seeds, as in fig. 4, which shows one- 
half of it. In both of these, the Buttercup and the Pea, 
the pistil becomes hard and dry in fruit. Let us look at 
the flower of the cherry or peach, but as the season has 
passed, we must take the engraving in place of the 
flower itself; fig. 5, of the cherry, will answer also for 
the peach, as they are much alike. Compare the flower 
with that of the Buttercup. You find as in that, out¬ 
side, a ; the green calyx next the petals, b ; within these, 
c, the stamens, and in the very center, instead of, as in 
the Buttercup, many pistils, there is but one, d. Another 
thing you will notice ; in the cherry, the calyx, corolla, 
and stamens are united, have grown together as it were, 
for part of their length, to form a little cup. These 
Fig. 5.— SECTION OF CHERRY FLOWER. 
parts in the Buttercup are all separate and distinct. 
Observe that the parts are in the same order in both 
flowers ; the solitary pistil of the cherry, like the several 
pistils of the Buttercup, in the very center of the flower. 
When the pollen of the cherry has fallen on its pistil, 
the rest of the flower falls away, and the pistil begins to 
grow. But as it grows and matures, it does not become 
a hard and dry pod, as does that of the Buttercup and 
the Pea, but a wonderful change takes place. The pistil 
in the first place grows enormously, and as it ripens, 
it becomes in part, very soft and juicy. I say in part, 
for the pistil itself docs not all become pulpy. The 
Cherry, the Plum, and the Peach, you know, are called 
“ stone-fruits,” and the change that takes place to form 
the “ stone,” is quite as marked as that which produces 
the flesh. Let us take a section of the Peach, as that is 
larger; in this, fig. G, after the flower falls, the pistil 
grows very rapidly. While the outer part of it is becom¬ 
ing soft and pulpy, the inner part is growing hard and 
stony ; you know how hard it is if you try to make 
peach-stone, or cherry-stone baskets. When the Peach 
is ripe, in some kinds, the free-stones, the flesh and 
stones separate readily, while in the cling-stones, they 
remain attached to one another. The peach-stone is 
not, as is generally supposed, the seed, but is a part of 
the pistil. The seed is within the stone, the “ peach 
meat,” as it is often call¬ 
ed. In the pistil of the 
Peach, etc., there are 
two ovules, side by side, 
but as a general thing, 
only one of them ripens, 
the other shrivels up and 
comes to nothing. Some¬ 
times, however, both 
ovules ripen into seeds, 
and you have two in 
place of one, or “double 
meaters” as the boys 
call them. It will be too 
Fig. 6.—SECTION OF PEACH. 
late for cherries, but you can watch these changes in the 
late peaches and plums, and by cutting one cross-wise 
occasionally, see how the originally soft pistil becomes, 
on its inner part, gradually harder, while its outer part 
grows softer as it ripens. Let us now look at another 
kind of fruit. If you cut down through the flower of a 
Strawberry, a Blackberry, or a Raspberry, as you did 
with the Buttercup, it will appear much as in fig. 7. 
Here you have, as in the Buttercup, the calyx, and co¬ 
rolla; then numerous stamens, and in the center a num¬ 
ber of pistils upon a receptacle, or the rounded end of 
the flower stem. This, fig. 7, is the flower of the Straw¬ 
berry ; that of the Blackberry, more likely to be in sea¬ 
son, is like it, except that the central part, the recepta¬ 
cle, is longer and narrower. After the Blackberry 
petals and stamens fall away, the pistils begin to ripen ; 
they grow rapidly, and if you cut through the fruit 
lengthwise, before it is quite ripe, as in fig. 8, you will 
see that each pistil becomes a little drupe or stone-fruit, 
fig. 9, just like a miniature cherry or peach. The same 
Fig. 7. —SECTION OF STRAWBERRY FLOWER. 
thing takes place within the Raspberry; the flesh in the 
little drupes is softer and more juicy. The chief difference 
between the Blackberry and Raspberry is this ; in the 
former, the drupelets, or grains, are attached to the re¬ 
ceptacle, while in the other, they cohere slightly to one 1 
another, but when ripe, readily leave the receptacle, and 
in picking the fruit, we leave this on the bush, as in. 
fig. 10. In the Straw¬ 
berry a still more cu¬ 
rious change takes 
place. The pistils do 
not increase greatly, 
but ripen into lit¬ 
tle, dry, one-seeded 
fruits, which many 
take to be seeds, but 
the proper seed is 
within them. As 
these ripen, the re¬ 
ceptacle enlarges 
greatly, it becomes 
soft and juicy, and 
eatable, while the 
real fruit is scattered 
over the surface, or 
is sunken in little 
pits, or depressions, as in figure 11. In the fruits here- 
described, we make use of very different parts ; in the 
Pea, we eat the seeds themselves ; in the Cherry, Peach, 
and Plum, it is a part of the ripened 
pistil; in the Blackberry, many ripen¬ 
ed pistils, with the receptacle to which 
they are attached; in the Raspberry, 
it is the ripened pistils only, without 
the receptacle; while in the Straw¬ 
berry, we eat the ripened pistils, be¬ 
cause we can not help it, as they are 
on the receptacle, which is the eatable 
portion, and what we really value in 
the Strawberry, is the juicy fruit-like 
end of the flower-stalk. There are still other fruits to 
be described, but they must be left for another Talk. 
By examining the fruits at 
different times as they are 
growing, you can better 
understand their real nature, 
than if you wait until they 
are quite ripe. I would add 
that the Almond is own 
brother to the Peach, but it 
never becomes fleshy; after 
flowering, it increases a 
good deal in size, but instead 
of the outer part becoming 
soft and juicy, as it does in 
the Peach, it gradually be¬ 
comes dry and breaks away from the stone or Almond 
shell. The eatable part of the Almond is the seed itself. 
largest Cities in tlie World.— When we 
studied geography in school, fifty years ago, the largest 
cities were supposed to be Pekin in China, Yeddo in 
Japan, and London in England, which had about one 
and a half million of inhabitants. Now the population 
Fig. 11.— SECTION OF A STRAWBERRY. 
of Pekin is very uncertain, being only “estimated,” and 
may not be a million. Yeddo is also uncertain, (per¬ 
haps 900.000). But London has towards five millions 
(4.764,312), which however takes in all the surrounding, 
thickly settled population, included in the “London 
Police district,” on both sides of the Thames river. 
Paris in the same way, on both sides of the Seine river, 
has 2,747,000 population, and New York in the same 
way had nearly two millions (1,942,000), that is taking in 
Brooklyn, Jersey City, Hoboken, and L. I. City, all of 
which are really part of New York, being only separated 
by narrow water channels. At the present rate of 
growth New York will soon be the second city of the 
world, and quite probably many of the boys and girls 
who read this will live to see it the largest city on the 
globe.—Only thirty-one years ago when we visited 
Chicago, it looked like a large village or small city, and 
had less than thirty thousand people in it. Now it has- 
about twenty times as many (503,304 by 1880 census).. 
