1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
187 
1©Y$ 4 (BUMS’ WMItt 
Tlie Woctor’s Talks. 
Do you recollect that Mother Goose verse, 
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, 
How does your garden grow ? 
It is not the finest specimen of a rhyme, as to make it 
v a : 'le properly you have to say con-f?’U-ry, which is con¬ 
trary to the rules of pronunciation. Perhaps instead of 
asking Mary, or any other youngster, boy or girl, how 
her or his garden grows, I had better find out if she or 
he has a garden. Have you a garden ? If not, go to work 
right off and make one. You will think that a very diffi¬ 
cult thing to do, especially those girls and boys who live 
in towns and villages where land, one of the very first 
things one needs in making a garden, is very scarce. 
The word garden covers a wide range, as a garden may 
be of many acres, only a few feet of a back-yard, or an 
old soap or similar box filled with earth. In fact, it 
often happens that the one who has the smallest of these 
gardens finds more enjoyment in it than those who have 
very large ones. “Enjoyment” is just what I wish you 
to have a garden for, and I hope that every boy and girl 
old enough to read this will this summer have a garden, 
if it is only just one plant, and that a bean or one of the 
very commonest seeds. If any of you have never put 
seeds in the ground and seen plants grow, here is some¬ 
thing you can do that will give you pleasure all summer 
long. Not pleasure only, but you can learn much from a 
garden, even if it is only a very little one in a box or a pot. 
The crackling sound when you stroke the cat’s back on a 
cold, dry day in winter is only thunder on a very small 
scale ; the little snaps are from the same cause which 
follow the same laws as that which makes the stunning 
thunder-clap. A twenty-acre field of wheat is made up 
of single wheat plants, and if you sow a single wheat 
grain and watch it from the seed until the plant that 
comes from it ripens wheat again, you can learn as much 
about the way in which wheat grows as if you had a 
large field to observe. Indeed, you would be likely to 
learn more, as having but one plant to watch you would 
have a better chance to see what it was doing than if it 
were crowded by others. If you can get a small bed in 
the large garden of your parents that will be very pleas¬ 
ant ; but if this not convenient you may be able to find a 
little spot in some fence-corner somewhere. Those who 
live on a farm will usually be able to do one or the other 
of these. Those who can not get a bit of earth in any 
other way can have a box in some safe place, only a box 
of earth will often need watering in hot weather. Hav¬ 
ing the earth, it must be made light and fine by digging 
and raking, and then it will be ready for the seeds.— 
“ What seeds shall I sow ? ” you will ask next; and my 
answer will be, What you can get. If your mother finds 
that yon wish to have a little garden, you may take my 
word for it that she will be very glad to help you, and if 
she haB no flower seeds there are no doubt some friends 
who have will be willing to let you have some. I 
have noticed that persons who are really fond of flowers 
are not only willing, but glad to help others who love 
them. If there are no flower seeds, then take some 
beans, or squash, or any garden or field plant. Only have 
something that will grow, and that you can watch from 
day to day. Don’t put your seeds too dfeep, nor too thick. 
Small seeds need but very little earth as a covering, and 
no plants do well when they are crowded. You must 
ask some older person to tell you how the seeds ought 
to be sown. A Beed—did you ever see anything more 
wonderful? A little, dry, lifeless body that has been 
lying still for months, it may be for years. You put 
it in the ground, and what a wonderful change! A 
living plant comes from it, that will grow often many 
f^et in length. I uon’t mean to say that the plant was in 
the seed, but the beginning of it was—a tiny, baby plant, 
eo to speak, all wrapped up, very much asleep, you will 
think, to have kept quiet so long, and with enough food 
with it to keep it growing until it is strong enough and 
quite ready to run alone. Suppose that all plants had 
heretofore grown from cuttings or slips of other plants, 
just as you know some do, and some one should come 
along with a bag of seed, we will say tomato seed, and 
declare that each one of these little yellowish things, no 
bigger than a flattened out pin’s head, would produce a 
large plant that would bear a bushel of fruit, who would 
believe him ? Why, each single seed would be a greater 
wonder than Barnum’s “ Great Moral Show.” But, oh 
dear 1 God’s wonders are so manifold, that we all of us, 
old and young, have our senses confused by their very 
abundance. As with the seed, the whole of a plant’s 
life is full of wonders, and if you watch your plants care¬ 
fully you will see every day some new thing. If you 
have Morning Glories or other climbing plants, just see 
how they get hold of something to lift up their weak 
stems ; if they twine, like a Morning Glory, just try to 
make one of them twine in the opposite way, and see 
what success you will have. Each leaf as it appears will 
be a thing of beauty, and then there will be flowers, 
bright delicate flowers for you to admire. But before 
the flowers open there will be something to see that is 
quite as interesting as anything else about them. You 
must notice, with the single flowers at least, how nicely 
the parts are packed away in the bud. The parts of the 
flower are not stowed away all in “ a muss,” but each as 
carefully folded as your mother folds her choicest linen. 
Just see how nicely the Morning-Glory is packed, and 
how prettily it is twisted, and compare this with the way 
in which the flower of the Four-o’-clock and others are 
tucked in. Then, as flowers go, seeds will begin to 
ripen. You will notice that the seeds are in pods or cases 
of different shapes, and that some of them when ripe 
open to let the seeds out. The different ways of doing 
this will bear watching, and if you wish to save any 
seeds yourself you must learn which plants scatter their 
seeds naturally and which do not. But I can not tell you 
all that there is to see in your garden, no matter how 
small it may be. You have eyes—learn to use them. 
The Doctor. 
-■ «■- 
Another Currant Question. 
In February last I, the Doctor, answered a little girl’s 
question, who wished to know what the dried currants 
of the stores were. Now it is Miss Amy, down in Nova 
Scotia, who wishes to know why our garden currants, 
which do not come from Corinth at all, are called cur¬ 
rants. Don’t I wish I could tell her! It is probably be¬ 
cause of a resemblance of the two in size and shape 
(when the store currants are fresh), but I am not sure. I 
can not find in my library any book that tells when and 
why the name was given. My oldest book about plants 
is dated 1040, and they were called currans then ; but the 
author says that in some parts of England the currant is 
called gozel, which sounds like an Anglo-Saxon name. If 
we wished to know why the early inhabitants of Britain 
called the fruit “gozel” we should be equally puzzled. 
The study of names is a very interesting one, and I like 
to see young people wish to know all they can about 
them. We can learn much about the origin of names, 
but however far back a name may be traced, there is a 
point beyond which we can not go. We can learn that 
most of the words we now use were originally Anglo- 
Saxon, or from the Latin, French, and other languages, 
but why the names in these languages were given to par¬ 
ticular things is not so easy to discover. The use of 
sounds to signify things began long before these sounds 
were expressed in writing, and the early history of lan¬ 
guage is very obscure. I hope the Nova Scotia Miss will 
get a more satisfactory answer to her next question, and 
Bhould she find out anything more about this one I hope 
she will let us all know. 
Aunt Sue’s I*uzzle«Kox. 
ANAGRAMS. 
1. Farce hunter. 
2. La ! “ monkies.” 
3. I go. Miss Mat. 
4. Can not live on. 
5. Secure tin. 
5. Buy oval car. 
7. I’m in coal-pit. 
8. Hebei's ague. 
9. Aunt, oil dice. 
10. Our thought. 
SYNCOPATION. 
Syncopate a substantive and leave a verb ; syncopate 
the verb and leave another; syncopate that and leave a 
proposition ; syncopate that and leave a beverage. 
Jessie May Flower. 
cross-words. 
CONCEALED GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 
1. Oh 1 do not leave me, as I am all alone 1 
2. Alas 1 Kate, my darling, I must go. 
3. Pa ran a horse all the way to the Saint Francis. 
4. When he returned from the San Franc, I scolded 
him so that he begged for mercy. 
5. Although he said, “Oh! I ought to have known 
better.” C. W. Suelmire. 
SQUARE-WORDS. 
Square the words “LOVE” and “HATE.” 
Charley Smith. 
ALPHABETICAL ARITHMETIC. 
WKI)DIOCYB(KKIE 
EDO 
DSC 
EDO 
C E Y 
I O K 
B E B 
BWS 
K B Frank Powers 
No. 439. Illustrated Rebus —also a Double Acrostic.— 
[This is one Aunt Sue sent a long time ago, and it has 
been crowded out until now; so if we have not given the 
right name to it you must not blame her. When the 
parts of the rebus are properly made out, the first and 
the last letters of each, read as an acrostic, will be the 
name of something you are no doubt ail very fond of.— Ed.} 
ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN THE MARCH NUMBER. 
Decapitations and Curtailments.— 1. Gape, ape. 
2. Grouse, rouse. 3. Homer, omcr. 4. Sage, sag. 
5. Heron, hero. 6. Beet, bee. 
1. My first is in hot but not in burn. 
My next is in cream but not in churn. 
My third is in new but not in old. 
My fourth is in snow but not in cold. 
My fifth is in hair but not in curl. 
My sixth is in peach but not in pearl. 
My whole is the name of a little girl. 
C. E. Gorton. 
2. My first is in cord but not in twine. 
My next is in groan but not in whine. 
My third is in Tom but not in Bill. 
My fourth is in valley but not in hill. 
My fifth is in Nell but not in Sue. 
My sixth is in brown but not in blue. 
My seventh is in good but not in bad. 
My eighth is in you but not in lad. 
My ninth is in square but not in round. 
My whole in a library should be found. 
Lizzie B. 
Cross-Word.— Rheumatism. 
Square-Word. PARIS 
ASIDE 
RISEN 
IDEAS 
SENSE 
Numerical Enigma. —Thread (Hatred. Red hat [the 
Cardinal’s], Dearth). 
Aritumorems.— 1. Hold. 2. Folio. 3. Attentive. 
4. Ivory. 5. Going. 6. Option. 7. Nook. 8. Poise. 
Alphabetical Arithmetic.— 
292)1249406(4278 (Key : Hysterical.) 
Geographical Hour-Glass. —Meshickemau. 
BABELMANDEL 
WORCESTER 
PAISLEY 
S I H O N 
A I X 
pi. 
C 
Het nows-stirfd, chiwh vaeh nail os goln, 
Gintnahu het dendhi konos, 
Keil lyguti litsogs evah lipedps wyaa, 
Seunen, tiuo het korobs.” 
William P. Albright. 
OKA 
ONEGA 
MARMORA 
SAGHARBOR 
ALBUQUERQUE 
