Why is it that some fruits respond so liberally to the efforts of horticulturists, while others defy every advance, preferring seemingly to be simply wild ? We have just been through one of nature's own gardens, where fruits and flowers vie with each other in beautiful profusion. There were huckleberries of seven different kinds, some better than others, but all good ; low sugar berries, dangle berries, great juicy swamp berries and a few of the rare white huckleberries. We have made repeated attempts to cultivate and improve on these, but always the same result, dwindling away gradually or dying at once. How different it is with the blackberries, of which there are in the same place four kinds in fruit, two of which we could not eat at all, and the other two were not unlike the luscious, well-ripened Lawton or Kittatinny of our gardens. These examples serve to show how much we have learned and also how much there is to learn.

Our national flower, the golden rod, is bearing us a marvelous wealth of gold, and among the forty odd species in this section of our domain, we can have it in all degrees of perfection. In the Solidago bicotor, one would think it was silver instead of gold, but then there is the eighteen-carat Solidago odora, smiling like a double eagle, to supply the deficiency. Which of them is our national flower ?

Nothing can look more barren at this season than the wild heath (Hudsonia eruoides). Here are acres of it apparently dead, as if scorched by fire, but if you could come next May, you would see a sight never to be forgotten. It will be one grand flower-bed of clear yellow, by which all our cultivated plants look shabby and poor.

Did you ever go out for a walk and count the different wild flowers in bloom? If not, try it once, and see what an extra interest it will excite in even an ordinary walk. Still better, it will be to make a list of the different plants, not merely the showy and beautiful ones, but include the humble and unpretending ones also. You will find many that are new to you, and perhaps you will not know their names, and, too, you may find several which you thought alike to be very different on closer observation. You will note these differences in your mind and soon will know each plant you meet. If you have a text book of botany, it will help you Many a delightful afternoon may be spent in the fields, book in hand, learning nature's secrets. With a little practice with your book, you can find the names of most of the plants you meet, but let me say right here, do not take it for granted that the common name you know a plant by will always be the one given in your text book, as common names are in many cases only local in their use. - F. L. Bassett, New Jersey.