COULDN'T COUNT.
"How many pieces of candy have you had, Wallie?"
"I don't know, mammy. I tan't tount over sebben."
A FLOWER CLOCK.
An English journal contains the following ingenious hint to the little gardeners. We have not tested the scheme ourselves, but it reads plausibly as follows:
It is quite possible to so arrange flowers in a garden that all the purposes of a clock will be answered. In the time of Pliny forty-six flowers were known to open and shut at certain hours of the day, and this number has since been largely increased. For instance, a bed of common dandelions would show when it was 5.30 in the morning and 8.30 at night respectively, for those flowers open and shut at the times named, frequently to the minute. The common hawk-weed opens at 8 in the morning, and may be depended upon to close within a few minutes of 2 in the afternoon. The yellow goat's-beard shuts at 12 o'clock noon absolutely to the minute, sidereal time—that is, when the sun attains its highest altitude. Our clocks do not follow the sun, but are generally a few minutes fast or slow, according to the longitude of the place where they are. The goat's-beard, however, is true time all the world over. The sowthistle opens at 5 a.m. and closes at 11-12 a.m. The white-lily opens at 7 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m.: the pink opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 6.30 p.m. In the towns few people know about such details as these; nor are the flower clocks often seen anywhere, though they have been constructed occasionally. Even in these days, however, farm servants often take their dinner-hour from the sun, or, failing that, from the yellow goat's-beard, which is never mistaken, whether it can see the sun or not. Should any of the readers of the Round Table test the accuracy of this singular time-keeping garden it is to be hoped they will communicate the result of their experiment to the world.