1883.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
245 
Probably most of you have seen a fine magic- 
lantern exhibition. If it were called Stereopticon, 
Phantasmagoria, Sciopticon, or by other learned- 
looking names, the thing itself was only an im¬ 
proved magic-lantern, and a very pleasing exhibi¬ 
tion it makes. It is wonderful to see a mid-winter 
scene melt away 
into one of tropic¬ 
al beauty, where 
the chilly white 
and blue of snow 
and ice, give way 
to every gorgeous 
color of the flow¬ 
ers of warm cli¬ 
mates! Sometimes 
the scene will be 
a cave or a dun¬ 
geon, and as we 
look upon it, all 
the gaiety and 
brilliancy of a 
ball-room will ap¬ 
pear in its place j 
You admire these 
transfo rmation 
scenes, and can 
only say “ wonderful, most wonderful !”—It is true 
they are wonderful, but not a bit more so than are 
those transformation scenes that are being exhib¬ 
ited all around you this spring. This bush, hut 
a few days ago a mass of scraggy brush, to-day 
is ablaze with scarlet or yellow. It seems but 
yesterday that the woods drew a brown out-line 
against the sky, but now it is one of tenderest 
green, while each tree of the wood or orchard, in 
covering its bare boughs with leaves and blossoms, 
makes a change quite as wonderful as the trans¬ 
formation scene of the show. These two exhibitions, 
the mimic scenes in the pictures, and the real one 
presented every spring, both agree in one important 
matter: 
They were l>otli prepared for be¬ 
forehand ! 
You hardly need be told that the magic-lantern 
exhibition could not have been given without some 
one to make the 
lantern. Others ar¬ 
ranged the light, 
and others still 
carefully painted 
the small pictures, 
the enlarged shad¬ 
ows of which you 
thought so wonder¬ 
ful. So with this 
spread of foliage, 
which, within a 
few days, has so 
changed the real 
scene. This re¬ 
quired many days 
for its preparation. 
When in the swelt¬ 
ering days of last 
July and August, 
you were glad to 
rest in the shade 
of the old horse- 
chestnut or of your favorite beech, these and all the 
other trees were busy at work in preparing for this 
exhibition. When all the parts were ready, they 
were carefully packed away in cases, some with 
SUCKLE. 
1 1 should like to know 
down or wool to keep from harm by the cold, and 
other cases were varnished or cemented on the out¬ 
side to keep out the wet, and at last when every¬ 
thing was ready, the trees shook oil all the 
old decorations of the former show, and awaited 
until the Blue-bird should announce 
'I'll© <«rcu( Spring' Opening. 
Of course this May number will find some of my 
young friends en¬ 
joying their mid¬ 
summer fruits, 
while others will 
be rejoicing that 
spring has come 
at last, but you all 
know that when¬ 
ever springcomes, 
the change from 
bare trees to leafy 
ones takes place 
within a very few 
days. To mention 
our exhibition 
once more: no 
doubt when you 
saw those pic¬ 
tures melt into 
one another in 
such an astonish¬ 
ing manner, after 
the first feeling 
of surprise was 
over, you said to yourself : 
how it was done.” 
Finding out How at is Hone, 
occupies those persons who are now called “scien¬ 
tists.” If they are chemists, physiologists, botan¬ 
ists, or whatever division of the great exhibition 
they study, they are only trying to “ find out” how 
some part of it “ is done”. If the exhibitor of the 
magic-lantern should let you go behind his screen, 
you would see that the beautiful “dissolving” or 
the blending of one picture into another, was 
“ done” by merely moving a piece of tiu, cut in the 
shape of a crescent, or new moon ! The whole 
secret of the show 
would be learned, aud 
you would see at a 
glance, “how it has 
done.” But if, as I 
hope you may, you 
wish to learn how 
winter gives place to 
spring in the real 
scene, you can give to 
it days, yes, years, of 
delightful study, and 
still find something 
new.I said that 
this great display of 
foliage was prepared 
beforehand. As the 
oat-field suddenly be¬ 
comes green from the 
appearance of, and in¬ 
crease in growth of 
the plumules that 
were within the seeds, 
so this sudden cover¬ 
ing of the trees, is 
from the leaves that 
were prepared before¬ 
hand and were within the buds. If you cut 
open a large bud, like that of the horse-chestnut, 
or lilac, you will see that it is filled with little 
leaves, packed closely one above another, and often 
the beginning of the flower cluster may be seen. On 
the stem each pair of leaves is set some distance 
above the next, but in the bud, these spaces are 
very short. When growth starts in the spring, the 
bud scales drop off and the spaces between the 
minute leaves grow rapidly. At the same time the 
little leaves unfold and increase in size, and in a 
few days the parts that were in the bud have ex¬ 
panded and enlarged to form a stem several inches 
long, with broad leaves. Examine any new sboot 
and you will find that the leaves are opposite, in 
Fig. 4.— BARBERRY LEAVES. 
pairs, in the horse-chestnut, and many others, 
while in the apple, pear, aud many more there 
is but one leaf at a place, the next one being 
above on the opposite side of the stem. This ar¬ 
rangement of the leaves is called alternate. 
The place on the stem where there is a leaf, or pair 
of leaves, is called the node; the space, or length of 
stem between a leaf orpair of leaves and the next is 
the internode. A stem, be it ever so long, is made 
up of a repetition of the same parts ; a node with 
one or two leaves, a louger or shorter internode, 
another node, and so on. The place where the 
leaf and stem join is the axil. Buds are either at 
the end of a stem, when they are terminal, orat the 
base of the leaf, or axillary. These are the regular 
places for buds, but they sometimes appear on 
other parts of the stem as adventitious or accidental 
buds. The growth from a terminal bud elongates 
the stem ; that from axillary buds produces branch¬ 
ing. Though leaves present such an endless variety 
of forms, they are all upon the same general plan. 
The quince-leaf given last month will illustrate 
the typical form. There is an expanded portion, or 
blade of the leaf, this is attached to the plant by 
means of a leaf-stalk, or petiole ; when this stalk is 
wanting and the blade is attached directly to the 
stem, it is sessile. Some leaves, like the quince, have 
apair of leafy appendages called stipules. These - v 
blade, petiole, and stipules, are all that any leaf has, 
and as both petiole and stipules are often lacking, 
we regard the blade as the essential part of the 
leaf. Last month it was stated that the leaf con¬ 
sisted of a pulpy part, with a frame-work of veins, 
and that the veins were arranged as a network in 
dicotyledonous and were parallel in monocotyledo- 
nous plants. When there is a mid-rib with veins 
on each side, like the plume of a feather, as in the 
quince, they are pinnately 
or feather-veined. If there 
are several principal veins, 
as in a holly-hock or rhu¬ 
barb leaf, such are pal- 
rnalely veined. The vari¬ 
ous outlines, the manner 
in which the margin is cut, 
and the union of small 
leaflets to form large com¬ 
pound leaves,all contribute 
to the great variety, of 
which you will daily meet 
many examples. The gen¬ 
eral office of the leaf is to 
work over and prepare the. 
crude sap taken up by the 
roots, and fit it to be used Fig- 5.— leaves for 
in the growth of the plant. climbing. 
An important part of their work in doing this is. to 
get rid of the water, and they are generally so form¬ 
ed and arranged on the 6tem as to favor evaporation. 
Some unusual forms of leaves may be mentioned. 
In the little bell wort of our rich woods, the stem ap¬ 
pears to run through the leaf. Such leaves are called 
perfoliate; their appearance, fig. 1, is caused by the 
union of the lobes of the base of the leaf upon the 
other side of the stem. In some honeysuckles, the 
edges of opposite leaves grow together, as in fig. 2. 
Leaves are often made to serve other than their 
regular uses; in the Sarracenias they form pitchers 
(fig. 3) to hold water and drown insects. In the 
barberry the leaves often develop as prickly 
spines, fig. 4. In a number of plants the leaf-stalks, 
by twining around an object as in fig. 5—aid the 
plant in climbing, and some leaves have a tendril at 
the end. In these cases the leaf may do the proper 
work of a leaf, and serve another purpose besides. 
In Trouble about her Date. 
In February last, the Doctor advised those who- 
wished a long-lived plant to try a Date Palm, and 
suggested planting the seed. This matter interested 
Julie E., of Iowa, who had several months before 
planted several date-stones, all of which produced 
plants. When Julie compared her plants with the 
one in the picture, she found the two so much un¬ 
like that she was greatly puzzled. Her plants have 
each, one straight, narrow leaf so very different 
