218 
[May, 
AMEEICAl^ AGHIOULTUEIST, 
greenish-yellow, and four petalled. But “ what 
are these four large white showy petals ?” They 
are not petals, for those you know belong to the 
flower, though they are petal-like. Each one is a 
bract, a peculiar form of a leaf ; all together they 
form an involucre. “ What is its use ?” One use 
is this : the flower-buds of the shrub are formed 
the summer before, and in the fall you may see 
them, like little caskets, holding the tiny buds of 
the real flowers, which are closely wrapped up in 
this involucre, one use of which seems to be to 
protect the real flower buds during the winter. 
Later, when open they may be of use to the flowers 
in some way, which we do not yet know. I have 
thus shown you that here are two 
VEBY COMMON PLANTS WORTU EXAMINING, 
and you will meet with such on every hand—not 
plants only, but insects, even the most destructive, 
havea story to tell as have animals of all kinds; 
and the rocks often are the records of the world’s 
early history. With a good pair of eyes, and the 
wish to use them, the country need never be dull, 
thinks Tue Doctor. 
About the Weed Lists. 
When I offered prizes for the longest lists of the 
weeds found on your farms, I had no idea of the 
great amount of labor it would require in order to 
decide upon the prizes. 1 do not mind the labor, 
though I do regret that it has made an earlier deci¬ 
sion impossible. The lists were made out in va¬ 
rious forms. Some were in columns and num¬ 
bered ; in others the weeds were classed alphabeti¬ 
cally, and in a few they were arranged according 
to their botanical families. In some lists the names 
ran on one after another, making counting very 
difficult. Some lists were in pencil, and others in 
red ink, though the majority were properly written 
in black ink. With five hundred and eighteen of 
these lists to examine, you may imagine that it was 
a time-taking job. I had a friend to help me, and 
it took us two days and one evening to open, 
count and record the different lists. After this was 
done, we found that there were ninety-five lists, 
with over one hundred names in each, some with 
over two hundred names. As the longest lists 
would be found among these, the examination and 
comparison of these became a slow and difficult 
work, especially as some lists contain many that 
cannot be considered weeds, but merely wild 
plants never found in cultivated grounds. At 
Acrostic Puzzle fob Mat, and a Decora¬ 
tion Day Rebus. —Arrange the letters in each 
flower in such a way as to make a word; anange 
the six words so that the initials will give the name 
of a flower.—The answer to the Illustrated Rebus is 
an altered selection from Robert Herrick’s Poems. 
the time of writing this, I have not been able to 
complete the comparison of the ninety-live lists, 
but will give the result in another part of the paper, 
which is printed later. 1 would thank all those 
who have sent lists, even the smallest ; my only re¬ 
gret is, that I cannot give a prize to every one. 
Whenever 1 have offered a prize to be competed 
for, I have almost regretted having done so, at the 
thought of the many who must be disappointed. 
When }’ou take part in a competition of this kind, 
you should not set your hopes too strongly on win¬ 
ning. In the case of the weed lists, the looking 
after the weeds, learning the names and recording 
them, has been useful, even if the large amount 
of labor did not bring a prize. “ The Doctor.” 
Our Hen and ftuails.--Little Girl's Letter. 
Our hen we call Minnie. She is very much like 
some girls I know. If they have a problem in arith¬ 
metic, they always get some one else to work it 
out for them. If they want 
a pair of mittens to wear 
to school, they always 
manage to have somebody 
else knit them as a present. 
Our hen has the same 
knack of doing things. We 
never knew her to make a 
nest for herself, but she al¬ 
ways deposits her eggs in 
some other hen’s nest; and 
we suppose it was in this 
way she got her little 
quails. We missed her for 
about two weeks and were 
afraid something had 
caught her, when one day 
what should we see but 
Minnie coming through 
the yard with eleven lit¬ 
tle quails, the proudest 
mother any one ever saw 1 
We were all delighted to 
see her alive, and with 
so many funny chickens. 
Well, Minnie, with her con¬ 
stant, watchful care, raised 
them all. When almost 
grown, mamma had a quilt¬ 
ing, and a homse full of 
ladies came. When they 
were all seated around 
the dinner table, some¬ 
thing frightened the quails, 
and what do you think they did? Why they 
just rose and flew in and lit right in the mid¬ 
dle of the table. And such a confusion, jumping 
up, running round and screaming among the la¬ 
dies ! They frightened the quails almost to death, 
poor little things, and they were glad to fly back to 
their mother, and Minnie was glad to get them 
close to her. The hen and quails always will fly 
Into the house every time anything frightens them, 
and we have had many amusing incidents occur in 
this way. We now have a large flock in the or¬ 
chard. They will come close to the door and whis¬ 
tle, and are as tame as chickens, because we never 
allow any one to molest them. Lilt Wing. 
A Boy’s Poultry Keeping. 
“A. C. 8.,” Williamsport, Pa., tells us “How I 
take care of my chickens.”—He does not state his 
age, but we judge from his writing that he is quite 
young. At any rate, his rales for management are 
good ones, and were they followed by older per¬ 
sons, they would find it profitable. He says : “ First 
—I feed my fowls every morning and evening. 
Second—I gather my eggs every evening. Third 
—I keep the coop clean. Fourth—I don’t feed 
oats. Fifth—I change their food almost every 
week. Sixth—I have the nests clean. Seventh—I 
remove all rubbish from the yard. Eighth—I never 
drive or scare them when laying. Ninth—I do not 
let them steal their nests. With six fowls, I get 
two and three eggs a day, and in summer more.” 
Which is the Top of an Apple ? 
Every now and then persons have a discussion 
as to which end of an apple is the top, and as they 
cannot decide the point, agree to refer it to the 
American Agriculturist. Everyone who has gather¬ 
ed an apple knows that the stem-end is uppermost 
as the fruit hangs on the tree, and many claim or 
this account that the stem-end is the top of the 
apple. If you young people wish to decide this 
point for yourselves, you must look at the fruit 
while it is very young, soon after the blossoms fall 
away. Apple blossoms, how beautiful they are as 
they cover the trees in such profusion! Besides 
admiring them in a mass, it will be well for you 
to examine some of them closely and learn about 
THE beginning OF TUE APPLE. 
You, of course, know that the showy part of the 
apple blossom is the corolla, it has five petals, or 
flower leaves (A); outside of these are five narrow, 
leafy parts, the sepals, which together are the 
calyx. As you look into the flower you see five 
slender pistils, and on the edge of the flower-cup 
a great many stamens. In many flowers you know' 
that these parts are all very distinct .and stand 
upon the top of the flower-stalk, but here they 
all seem to be upon the top of a very small apple. 
If you cut the blossom in two lengthwise, you will 
find it to appear as at B in the engraving. You will 
see in the centre the lower parts of the pistils, the 
ovaries, and these are surrounded by the low'er 
part of the calyx, which adheres to them. The tiny 
green apple at the bottom of the blossom is mainly 
the enlarged calyx. When the blossoms fall away, 
there is no difficulty in seeing which is the top of 
the apple ; when it is very young, the stem end is 
evidently the bottom, and the opposite, or calyx 
end, is the top. As the young apple grows, it be¬ 
comes too heavy for the stem to hold it in an up¬ 
right position, so it soon falls over, and afterwards 
hangs top-end down. If you cut open a young 
apple now and then, as the fruit is growing, you 
will see that the seeds are formed, and that they 
are being enclosed in tough parchment-like cases. 
These which you know so well in the core of the 
ripe apple, are the real fruit, that is, the ripened 
ovaiy. They are surrounded by the lower part of 
the calyx, which is attached to them ; this grows 
very rapidly, and in time ripens to form the great 
mass of the apple. The portion then, which we 
eat in the apple is mainly the ripened calyx, and 
the core, which we throw away, is what in the bo¬ 
tanical definition is the true fruit of the apple tree. 
A CLUSTER OF APPLE BLOSSOMS WITH SECTION OF A FLOWER. 
Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
