69 



What plant comfort is, is a question more easily suggested than 

 answered, for it is a very large subject — about as large as the sur- 

 face of the earth. As a guess we will say that there are as many 

 different kinds of plants as there are people. It is at least safe to 

 say that plants have as many different notions as to their conditions 

 of life as have the people of the different nations and tribes of the 

 world. 



If you were to have a birthday party and should invite as your 

 guests the children from the four quarters of the earth, and by 

 magic could bring them to you in a 

 jiffy, the boys and girls from Green- 

 land would come enfolded in seal- 

 skin, and those from Hawaii would 

 bring only their bathing suits. You 

 would have a busy time keeping 

 them comfortable, for when you 

 opened the door to cool off the little 

 Greenlanders, the little Kanakas 

 would complain of too much draft ; 

 and at table the former would ask if 

 you happened to have some tallow 

 candles for desert, and the latter 

 would ask for breadfruit and ban- 

 anas. 



Many of our flowering plants have 

 been brought together from such re- 

 mote quarters as that. We have 

 bulbs from Holland, and pansies from England, and phlox from the 

 dry atmosphere of Texas. 



There is as much difference in the conditions necessary for com- 

 fort in these different plants as there is in the requirements of the 

 little Eskimos and little Polynesians. To some some extent, plants 

 can change their manner of living, but in the main they are happi- 

 est when they can have their own way, just as you and I are. 



We cannot bring about the foggy, damp weather of Holland and 

 England when we want it, neither can we bring the dry atmosphere 



461 



^l.—The 

 snow 'drop. 



