106 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[March, 
no turning or change of position is required; the 
artist cunningly leading the eye away from that which 
but for this trick of his might be readily seen. Let 
us show you how readily the eye may be deceived. 
Look at the simple diagram fig. 1, and see whether the 
upr'ght lines are parallel or not—no doubt most of you 
Fig. 1.— RECEPTIVE DIAGRAM. 
will say that they are farther apart at the top than at the 
bottom. There is another way in which we showed this 
seven years ago, but the boys and girls who saw it then, are 
young men and women now, so we will use it again as fig. 
2, to illustrate this matter. Which of those two parts of 
circles is the larger ? You will very likely say the lower 
one. Measure it, or what is better, take a thin piece of 
paper and draw the outline of one, then place this over 
the other, and tel! us how much the difference is. There 
Fig. 2.—WHICH IS THE LARGER ? 
are other ways in which the untrustworthiness of the 
eyes may be shown, but these will illustrate the fact that 
things are not always as they seem. We give you one 
more puzzle picture, and allow you to find out for your¬ 
selves to which class it belongs. 
A Foolc at Some March Flowers. 
Of course the boys and girls who live in the Southern 
States, and those upon the Pacific coast, have not been 
watching day after day to see the snow disappear, as 
have those who live in the colder parts of the country. 
Our children are scattered so far north, south, cast, and 
west, that when I make a talk that is seasonable for 
one part, it is too late or too early for another. If we 
taik about March as it is all north of Virginia, we shall 
only recall what happened to the boys and girls south of 
that a month or more earlier. Yes ; you' n Georgia and 
California, and such places, have had your spring, while 
you in Florida and Texas hardly know when winter ends 
and spring begins. Well, you of course know that in the 
Northern States the snow must go before the flowers 
will come. And the very first flowers of spring seem 
much more precious than the later ones ; we only find 
one here and there, while later they abound everywhere. 
If I were to ask you, master, or miss, which is the earli¬ 
est wild native spring flower, what would you say ? No 
doubt many would answer the Snow-drop, as they have 
read of that blooming through the snow. But that is 
not wild in this country, and is only to be found in gar¬ 
dens. There is the beautiful May-flower, or Trailing 
Arbutus, which is some seasons very early, but there is 
something earlier than that, for in years when the Trail- 
Fig. 1.—ALDER FLOWERS. 
ing Arbutus is early, my plant is still earlier. Earlier 
than the little “Whitlow-grass,” which is not a grass, 
or the small Saxifrage on the dry hills. Earlier than 
anything I can think of except the Chickweed, which 
will bloom whenever the snow melts in winter and allows 
the sun to fall full upon a patch of it, then its little | 
white stars will open as smilingly as if they were not to 
be frozen solid the next day. But although the Chick- 
weed is so common, it does not belong here, but is a 
stranger, though so thoroughly at home that you would 
hardly suspect it. The earliest native flower that I can 
think of is the Alder. You all, or at least all of you who 
live in the country, know the Alder, which is so common 
on the banks of streams, where it forms thick clumps. 
Every boy who has been a fishing knows the deep holes 
shaded by alder bushes, where he is pretty sure to get a 
bite. I say that the Alder is the earliest, but the Hazel 
nuts come close to it, but where I live the Alder is just a 
little ahead. Now if any of you know of any plant in 
the Northern States that opens its flowers earlier in 
spring than the Alder, I wish you would tell me what it 
is. I don't mean to say there is none, only I don't think 
of any. You “ did not know that the Alder had flowers ? ” 
—well, that is what I supposed. I have known many who 
were not boys and girls, but men and women, who had 
lived among trees all their lives, who did not know that 
the oaks and hickories, the alders and hazels, and many 
other trees and shrubs bore flowers. No flowers 1 why, 
what do you call those clusters swinging in the March 
wind upon every Alder-bush long before the leaves come 
out f “ Oh, those are tags.”—Yes I know that is the name 
by which they are called in many places, but they are 
really flowers. You think that they are not flowers be¬ 
cause they are not bright and showy, but while many 
flowers are of the most beautiful forms and colors, there 
are many on very beautiful plants that make scarcely 
any show. You must remember one thing, that the use 
of the flower, all that it is made for, is to form seed 
from which other plants may grow, and if it is best for 
the flower to be bright and gay it is so, and we admire it 
and say “ beautiful,” “lovely,” but if the flower can do 
its work just as well in drab or sad colored clothes, as 
these of the Alder, we may not say “lovely,” but we 
can say “beautiful,” because it is doing its duty and 
serving the purpose for which the Creator designed it. 
Now, the reason I called your attention to these early 
March flowers of the Alder, is that you may see how 
beautifully they are arranged for their work—that of 
seed-making. You all recollect how a lily looks, as that 
is such a large flower and so showy that if seen once will 
always be remembered. You recollect there are first the 
leaves of the flower, (petals is the proper name), those 
that are so pure in the white lily, and so gay in others. 
Just inside of these are six slender stalks, each with a 
little pouch or case at its top that dusts out a dark col¬ 
ored or yellow powder, which shakes off upon your 
clothes or gets upon your nose if you smell too closely 
of the lily. These are the stamens , the powder is pollen, 
and the little cases that hold, or rather shed the pollen, 
are the anthers. Right in the middle of the lily is a 
stouter stalk than those of the stamens, with a sort of 
knob on top and a larger bulging portion at the bottom, 
which after the rest of the flower falls away becomes the 
seed pod. This bulging part is called the ovary , the 
stalk the style, and the knob at the top the stigma , and 
altogether the pistil. Now, the curious thing about it 
Figs. 2 and 3 .—scale of alder tassel. 
is, that unless the pollen of this or some other lily 
falls upon the stigma, the ovary will have no seeds. It 
has when the flower blooms the beginning of seeds, but 
unless these are made to grow by the pollen, they will 
come to nothing. Now the pistil is a very important 
part of the flower, and so is the stamen or its anther that 
produces the pollen. These are present in some form or 
other in every flowering plant, sometimes as in the lily, 
both kinds in one flower, but sometimes the stamens are 
in one flower and the pistil or pistils in another. Our 
Alder tags look very unlike lilies, but let us see if these 
seed-making parts are there. In figure 1, a, you see 
some Alder “ tags ” as you call them, but botanists call 
them atnents. They look something like caterpillars. 
Examine them closely and you will see that they are 
made of separate parts upon a slender stem. Each one, 
as you look at it, especially if you have a magnifier, is a 
sort of scale like figure 2 ; pull off one carefully and turn 
it over, look at it with a glass, and see three little flow¬ 
ers under each scale, one of which is seen very plainly 
in figure 3, with its four stamens. So each tag or ament 
has a great many flowers. But you do not see the pis¬ 
tils ; you must look in other flowers for those. See at 
h in figure 1, the little cones that very few people notice ; 
these too are made of scales, but closer together than 
the others ; in figure 4 you have one magnified, and you 
can see the little thread-like styles sticking out from 
under the scales. Cut the cone apart, each scale will be 
like figure 5 on the outside, but turn it over as in figure 
C, and you will see two ovaries, each with two styles 
So you see the stamens and pistils are far apart, but as 
the March wind shakes the “ tags ” the pollen is quite 
sure to get carried to the pistils, and then each ovary 
grows to form a little nut with one seed in it. The 
scales of this cone grow too, and become thick, as in 
figure 8. You will probably find old ones upon the bush 
Figs. 4, 5, and 6.- fertile cone and scales. 
from which the nuts have fallen, but if you take one 
when ripe in the fall and cut it apart, you will find be¬ 
neath each scale, now very thick and woody, as in figure 
7, a couple of little nuts, like that shown at a. Now, I 
think that with the help of these figures and this descrip¬ 
tion, you will be able tp see that the Alder has flowers, 
and very interesting ones, too. I wish you to notice that 
flowers all have the same work to do, to produce seeds, 
that the stamens and 
pistils are the parts 
engaged in doing 
this, and all the rest 
of the flower is of 
comparatively little 
importance, and that 
while the forms of 
flowers are wonder¬ 
fully varied,the same 
general plan runs 
through all. When 
you are taking your Figs. 7 and 8.—cone and nut. 
rambles, do not 
notice the showy flowers only, for there are many 
quite as unpretending as the Alder that will be found on 
close acquaintance to be quite as interesting as their more 
brilliant sisters. Later, when the birches hang out their 
tags you will find that their flowers are arranged very 
much like those of the Alder. The hazel aments, while 
they at first sight appear much like those of the Alder, 
will on examination prove quite different, but I have not 
time to point out what the difference is. 
The Doctor. 
How .Fannie Carried a Whole Bar¬ 
rel of" Apples. 
Jamie, though only 11 years old, is quite strong for 
his age, for with a “ square hold ” he can lift 100 pounds. 
Still, with all his strength, he was quite confounded the 
other day when his mother said, “ Jamie, there is a bar¬ 
rel of apples up stairs, and I waut you to take it down 
cellar; it is coming cold, and the apples will freeze if 
left there.”—“ Why, mother, I can’t do it,” he answered. 
—“Oh, I am sure you can if you try,” wus the reply.— 
“ But,” he said, “ it will break my back to try.” His 
mother told him that she would not ask him to do any¬ 
thing impossible, and that she hoped he would never 
say “ no ” to anything but to a temptation to do a wrong 
or mean thing. Jamie went up to where the barrel of 
apples was, and looked at it, then he moved it a little 
way, and then tried to lift it, but try as he might he 
could not raise the edge of the barrel from the floor. 
Then he sat down and thought over the matter; here 
were the apples, and they must go down cellar, and he 
was to do it, but how to do it was what puzzled him. 
Just then a basket—a peck basket—caught his eye, and 
the puzzle was solved. He took the basket, filled it with 
apples, and carried it to the cellar ; there he took the 
apples out, laying them on some boards, handling so 
carefully all the while as not to bruise any, and then 
went back for another basketful. After working indus¬ 
triously for a while ho had the great satisfaction of see¬ 
ing the bottom of the barrel, and he thought it was the 
best looking part of the barrel; then it was but short 
work to take down the empty barrel and place the apples 
back into it. “I’ve done it, mamma, I’ve done it; I 
have taken the whole barrel of apples from the garret to 
the cellar.”—“I knew you could when I sent you to 
study this lesson,” said his mother. “Lesson 1 what 
lesson 1 ” But instead of telling him, she preferred to 
let him find out for himself. Jamie at first thought his 
mother wished to teach him to contrive a way out of 
difficulties, or not to be scared at what seemed an im¬ 
possibility. These lessons, though important, were not 
what his mother had in mind. You may be sure that 
Jamie went to bed tired that night, but after he was 
supposed to be sleeping soundly, he called out: “Mamma, 
I’ve got it. I know why you set me at that barrel of 
