100 THE NATURE-STUDY OF PLANTS 
ferocious and strenuous warfare which is waged day 
and night, and especially the latter, by an innumerable 
host of sleepless, relentless and hungry foes. They 
devour one’s treasures and show no respect either for 
infancy or old age. Grubs of all sorts and sizes, 
snails and slugs, green fly and blackfly, earwigs and 
millipedes, rust, smut and mildew, are some of the 
worst of the enemies that the gardener has to fight, 
against fearful odds, from New Year’s Day to New 
Year’s Eve in pursuit of this restful and soothing 
hobby. Nevertheless, one must remember that in 
a garden plants are placed under highly artificial 
conditions, and we must never think that the children 
of God’s creation, either animal or vegetable, live 
naturally in an everlasting and universal state of 
internecine warfare: on the contrary it is, as I have 
already pointed out, much nearer the truth to think of 
nature as a gigantic co-operative society, the oldest 
and most successful that one can imagine; but that 
is a matter on which I need not expatiate any more. 
Now, I have been engaged in the amiable pastime 
of unsuccessful gardening for some years, and I was 
naturally struck by the fact that the Herb Robert in 
my borders, which are a well-stocked menagerie of small 
and voracious wild beasts, seems hardly ever to be 
attacked and this of course set me thinking about 
its protection. 
The first thing that I noticed was that it is supplied 
liberally with long hairs, and then I remembered its 
smell, which is emphasized in some of its popular 
names. 
The hairs clothe the stem and leaves as well as 
the sepals, and, like some of those that are to be found 
upon many well-known plants, they are glandular; 
