236 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



Would yon know her secrets? Yon will not learn them by con- 

 ning the open hook of nature, of which we have been told so much, 

 and which it is to be hoped some of us have by heart. She knows 

 how to keep her own counsel, and will not tell her methods to the 

 world. In all ages men have admired nature --she has inspired their 

 noblest thoughts, and poets and painters have proclaimed her gran- 

 deur and her beauty, from King David down to the present. Man 

 has also persistently sought her strong box, and she has revealed 

 places where she sometimes leaves it, but it is pretty well decided that 

 she has, like every good capitalist, various places of deposit, not pat- 

 ronizing one bank alone. In this search a few secrets have been 

 unearthed, and some persons have profited by them. A few others 

 have tried experiments, a great many have guessed at methods, while 

 a very small number have deliberately set about observing nature's 

 modes of operation minutely, comparing notes,* and following, as 

 near as may be. her implied instructions. These are the hope of the 

 Avorld. 



Nature's field of labor is extensive In it may be found every 

 variety of soil, poor and rich, and although mistress of it, she holds 

 it in trust for the children of men. and makes it yield as well as she 

 can. The field is rich in materials, but the demands of her children 

 render it difficult at times to satisfy them. And again, there are 

 often unfavorable conditions that make success doubtful, and oft 

 impossible, but she is an indulgent mother and does the very best 

 she can. Some of those for whom she labors are a worthless lot, but 

 a few of them, now arriving at years of discretion, seek to help her 

 a little. From very early times nature has had a handmaid: — rude, 

 unlettered, ignorant at first, she has in all these long years lea.rned 

 much, and now promises to prove herself invaluable, not only to 

 nature, but to man. He has at last awakened to the necessity of 

 cooperative, intelligent action in this field, where nature, the mother 

 and ruler, has been supreme. He begins to appreciate how often 

 man has been of ruinous iujnry by his ignorant demands, and what 

 needless sacrifices he has caused : — for example, by denuding a por- 

 tion of the land of its majestic forests he has dried up the native 

 streams: by wholesale destruction of the birds he has destroyed the 

 fruit. For long ages he has cried to nature, " give, give," making no 

 adequate return to the field, content, if possible, to reap without 

 sowing, with no fear of retribution. Xotr he is learning that 



" Earth gets Earth's price 

 For what Earth yives us ; 

 'Tis only heaven is given away." 



and that '• as he sows so also fehall he reap."" Indeed, it is time that 

 the warning messages, delivered in diminished harvests and increased 

 wants, should be heeded. Otherwise Ijankruptcy lies not far l)ehind. 



