LECTURES ON USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 55 weary and often dangerous exertion. Some years ago people used to employ for lights at night great torches, with a flickering, smoking flame and suffocating vapors; next they used candles and lanterns, with their dim light; then came gas, which has enabled us to have our shops and streets in cities and large towns at night almost as light as day. Look around you, and see how many facilities there are for traveling, for reading, and gaining knowledge; and how many comforts we enjoy, which those who lived hundreds of years ago knew nothing about. Three hundred and fifty years ago this country was all covered with dense forests; there were no houses, no cities, and no white people here. Now think of the millions of men and women, and boys and girls, who live here, and of the farms they have cultivated, and the cities they have built, and the railroads, and steamboats, and printing presses, and a thousand other useful things which add so much to our comfort and happiness. Think, too, of messages being sent hundreds of miles and an answer returned while a person waits no longer than a little boy might do who had taken a letter to a gentleman's house, and was told to wait for an answer. And this is really done every day. Such things as I have already alluded to are so common now that few persons deem them strange or wonderful, yet many of them were never heard of by our great-grandfathers. It is about such things, and what is called Science, that I wish to tell you in my lectures, and to explain how many of these wonderful inventions came to be known, and how they are carried on. By attending to these lectures you will have something interesting to think and talk about, and you will learn also to feel how pleasant a thing it is to live in a time when so many privileges surround you. But I did not intend to give you a lecture this time, but merely an introduction, that you might know what I propose to do in future. Thanking you for your kind attention on this occasion, and hoping to meet you all at my next lecture, with many of your friends also, I now take my leave. IT can not be too deeply impressed on the mind, that application is the price to be paid for mental acquisitions; and that it is as absurd to expect them without it, as to hope for a harvest where we have not sown the seed. 56 FLOWERS, AND THEIR FRUIT-DUST. Microscopic Views.-o. 2. OF FLOWERS, AND THEIR FRUIT-DUST. BY UNCLE GEORGE. MY young farmer, Willie, is in the garden, threshing about with his hoe among the weeds and grass. Fanny, will you give him a call?" "Yes, uncle, and I guess he will not be sorry to look at his weeds from a different stand-point, for he seems to have worked at them with a purpose." "And so he has, but I doubt if he would care to see them any larger before they are hoed up. Should you, little black-eyes?" No, sir, unless you should magnify me and my hoe too." 66 "Ah, Johnny, you needn't expect that; Uncle George makes much of you already, without treating you like a 'big bug,' which you know is only a little bug in a peculiar position." "Jennie, I guess you must call Fanny, and Willie too, and I'll reserve my little black-eyes to send after you if you get lost with them." "No danger; here they come, like a pilgrim and a gay widow, flaunting in weeds. Why, cousin Willie, have you turned herb doctor? What's good for slow feet, my loiterer ?" Fanny." A pear (pair) quick-set in a white-brier jam. I can tell you as well as Willie." Willie." Why, what's the matter with my grave cousin, Jenniehave you turned wag? Here's a sprig of rue for a corrective." "Thank you, cousin, I'll reciprocate, when you need one, with a sprout of birch." "A truce, my wild-birds, with your chatter. See what I show you here from Willie's tough corn-grass'—this low, spreading tuft, whose seed-stalk is like a leaning lightning-rod, with the three prongs at the top for heads. Along one side only of each prong the seeds are formed, and this is a single blossom, scarcely discernible to the naked eye.” "One blossom! it seems rather like a glorious tree, a tall, leafless, crimson-boughed tree, splendid enough to have borne the golden apples we read of in the Wonder Book.'" "Yes, Fanny, and if your eyes had been bright enough you would FLOWERS, AND THEIR FRUIT-DUST. 57 have seen the golden apples on it-there they hang, one, two, three -oh, lots of them!" "Johnny is always making discoveries; what do you find, Jane?" “A beautiful trunk, with many stout prongs growing from it, and all of clear and brilliant colors, like a cactus; and on the prongs are clinging bright, yellow globes. Near this, on one side, is a broad, graceful letter X, done in deep purple, and having a white thread to it. How very beautiful this little, insignificant flower appears!" "Well, I declare, it ought to be something good, for the wiry grass it grows on is tough enough to dig." "The pronged trunk is the pistil of the flower, the white thread a stamen, and the purple X an anther. And that little flower has bloomed since the world begun, year after year, in its unnoticed beauty, and been trampled under foot for ages, and still it blooms the same. Is it not then certain that beauty has a higher end to serve, than to please the eye, and that the patience of Nature must be inexhaustible? Now, Willie, shake a little of the dust from that corn spindle upon the glass, and see what you have." "Have! I have gold oranges as smooth as glass, and plenty as pebbles." "Now break a sprig of the 'silk' from the newly formed ear, and look." 66 Why, that is a silver saw with enormously long teeth, and the golden oranges are sticking to the teeth like coarse sawdust." "The 'oranges' you speak of are the pollen, or seed-dust of the flower; they grow on the stamens which, in the corn, are situated on the spindle or top of the plant, and when mature they are shaken by the wind upon the pistils, which make the silken tassel of the ear, and are furnished with those barbs or teeth to catch the pollen. One thread goes to each kernel, and on every thread must lodge this golden dust, or where that terminates in the cob there would be no kernel. Look, now, at the pollen of the squash or pumpkin, Fanny." “Oh, the thousand splendid pincushions, with the pins sticking up all over them! If it were not for the pins I should think I saw the little pumpkins themselves." "Examine this flower without the glass; you see at the stem of this there is nothing to show the future fruit, while on that which Willie holds is a little green pumpkin. That flower contains the pistil, this, which men call a 'false bloom,' contains the stamens and the pollen on them. If these same 'pincushions' of Fanny's fancy were not in some way brought in contact with that big, unsnuffed 58 FLOWERS, AND THEIR FRUIT-DUST. candle-wick, which seems a blaze on the top of the green lamp of of a pumpkin, the innocent race of pumpkins would cease to exist. Alas for our Thanksgiving supper then; all that stands between pumpkin pie and destruction is the very curious contrivance which Nature has to marry the pumpkin blows." "Oh dear, how is it, Uncle George?" I hope the contrivance will not get out of order easily." "Don't be alarmed, Willie, about the machinery-the works of the Wise Orderer are sure as they are beautiful. You see at the roots of this pistil, which seems the burning wick of the lamp, is a little deposit which might seem to be the oil that rises around the socket ; this is really honey, and the plant we are examining is not such a pumpkin-head as you might fancy, for the trick of the thing in setting her honey there is to lure the bees into her longing heart. Just such another honey cup is in the falsely named 'false blossom,' and while the unthinking bee drinks honey there, he gets his thigh covered with this bristled pollen, bristled for that very purpose, you must see; for if it were smooth as the corn pollen it would not adhere; and since the vines run level it could not fall into the needed place, and thus, when he goes farther to get honey he pays his way by leaving the golden fruit-dust brushed off against the glutinous sides of the stigma, by which care the germs below become 'some pumpkins,' as the saying is. "The rich strawberries are indebted to the same kind minister to perform their marriage, and away he goes with a kiss for the bride and a mouth full of honey to all the lonely blossoms of hill and valley, of field and garden." 66 Funny weddings, where bride and bridegroom never meet.” "Yes, Willie; but you must know that in fashionable circles it is customary, on many occasions, instead of a personal visit to send a card. Squashes and pumpkins, no doubt, carry gentility to its utmost extent, and what may seem very queer to my young farmer is all very natural in high life, and with young squashes. But never mind the figure of speech; remember that Nature in all her infinite variety has a purpose, and many a little insect is doing others good service when he only thinks to serve himself." GOODNESS of heart is man's best treasure, his brightest honor, and noblest acquisition. It is that ray of the Divinity which dignifies humanity. THE REWARD OF SELFISHNESS. THE REWARD OF SELFISHNESS. A FABLE. In a quiet spot by the river side A sweet little garden lay; It was filled with flowers, the love and the pride Then the rain fell down and the gentle dew, The sunflower tall, the violet blue, And the rich exotic rare. The dahlia was there, with so selfish a heart, The violet looked with a tearful eye, The columbine hung her beautiful head, And many a flower with quivering dread Still the selfish dahlia loftier grew, But the good flower-king, as it chanced, came near, He saw their trouble, and gently gave eår While their wrongs they wholly revealed. "Oh, what shall be done," said the angry king, That has dared to do such an unjust thing, "And this will we do; let her grow and thrive, And proudly aspire to the sky, Yet her beautiful blossoms no sweetness shall give "And you, my oppressed ones, shall fling to the gale Bright, rosy-cheeked children shall gladly inhale, 59 |