LIFE-HISTORY OF THE HERB ROBERT 99 
frequently find that if the leaves of the plants of 
our hedgerows are large they are more or less cut 
up into small areas, while small leaves, like those of 
the Chickweed, are not divided. 
We can then well believe that \ Ze 
our plant need fear neither AMG rad 
suffocation nor starvation, and = =; tee . 
that, other things being equal, ( 
it can have no excuse for fail- aS (6) 
ing to grow into a thing of je 39 Leaf of (a) Herb 
beauty. <A healthy plant in Robert, and (6) Chick- 
congenial surroundings will °* Pe eee 
make quite as many as 80 . 
leaves before it begins to flower; they will not all be 
in evidence at once, for as the later ones appear their 
predecessors wither away. I have counted 62 on a 
single plant, all fresh and vigorous, just when the 
flowering stems were beginning to sprout. 
That was in my own garden, where I like always 
to have at least one plant. Asa rule I discourage the 
others quite successfully with the Dutch hoe, but one 
year I left them alone on purpose to make these 
observations, and I should be afraid to say how many 
I had: they certainly numbered some hundreds, and 
they were all the children of one parent. 
Now, I sometimes read about gardening as a 
peaceful and delightful recreation, as a gentle and a 
civilizing art in the practice of which one forgets that 
there are such things as bad words. 
Personally I find that, apart from the grave perils 
of the elements, such as drought, deluge and whirl- 
wind, it consists very largely in an everlasting but 
more or less vain attempt to save here and there a 
plant that is not a weed from the ravages of the 
