PRAIRIE FLOWERS OF LATE AUTUMN. 231 



able growing season. No one would care to say that a Rubus is 

 less hardy than an iEsculus. They are not to be compared, and 

 there the matter ends. If two species in the same genus have 

 similar habits of growth, and one fails to bear the surrounding 

 conditions while the other thrives, the case is very different, and 

 it is more natural to seek the reason, for the answer, if it could be 

 given, might be a blessing to every orchardist and gardener suf- 

 fering from losses among his tender plants. And even here it 

 may be that the explanation turns upon surroundings to which 

 each plant has been subjected. We know that species migrate 

 from the home of the parent as birds from the parental nest or 

 the sheep from the fold. It is not difficult to believe that off- 

 spring from common stock in time develop progeny subjected to 

 very unlike conditions. Under dissimilar circumstances they 

 develop unlike tendencies ; and when, after centuries, these new 

 forms are again brought together through man's culture, while 

 they may be outwardly the same, the one is tender while the other 

 is not. It is a question of the resistive power which, whenever 

 we reach for it, whether with the high-power lens or the chem- 

 ist's test-tube, the result is much the same. This generation 

 seeks after a sign, and it might do many worse things. It may 

 be a long time before there will be a better test for hardiness 

 than that which is applied when a plant is subjected to the actual 

 conditions. At present there is no rule without innumerable 

 exceptions, which not only " prove the rule," but prove that it is 

 valueless. The Greenlander may easily fall a victim to small- 

 pox, because, we say, his system has not been so situated as to 

 develop the resistive power to this direful malady. The Northern 

 man goes south and is stricken with a fever that does not cause 

 death to those " to the manor born." 



In the field we see the corn falls with the first hard frost, 

 while the asters along the roadway hold their freshness and con- 

 tinue to blossom until early winter congeals the sap. Turn to 

 the flower-garden, and we see many of our tender plants in the 

 withered brownness of death, and by their side stands the Anter- 

 rhinum in the beauty of its pristine freshness, bearing its blos- 

 soms of every size from the minutest bud up to the full flower. 

 The pelargonium has its dead branches intermingled with the 

 living stems of the petunia. The moss-rose is lifeless upon the 

 ground, while the prostrate verbena is fragrant with new blos- 

 soms. Snows come and go long after the Indian summer has been 

 succeeded by the chill November days, and the pansies smile 

 from among frosty fallen leaves. Death and life are closely asso- 

 ciated, and, while we can not comprehend it all, there are few 

 who would lose the exhilaration of a prolonged search for the 

 sake of knowing it all at once. 



