GARDEN LESSONS 285 



in their special ways of clinging to the passer-by. In 

 Accena microphylla the little thorns are sharp, simple 

 points. In some of the others they are hooks, but in 

 Accena pulchella they are beautiful little arrows with 

 double barbs. Now, in all these three plants there is a 

 hidden history which would tell us what there was in 

 the original surroundings that caused these differences 

 and has perpetuated them ; but the history is a hidden 

 one, and so must remain, and when any one tells me 

 that he knows all about plants, I have but to show him 

 some little and apparently such insignificant points as 

 these, and the most learned at once confess their 

 ignorance. 



Another lesson which the garden teaches is how 

 nearly connected we all are with every other living 

 organism. This is a very large and a very deep 

 subject, which I am quite unable to enter into fully, 

 and it is difficult to state even the slight hints of it 

 that the garden gives. That there is between human 

 life and plant life something closer than and different 

 to the simple connection between the cultivator and 

 the crop seems to have been felt by many. Something 

 of the sort must have been in Shakespeare's mind when 

 he said, ' One touch of nature makes the whole world 

 kin,' which is not, as generally quoted, a mere platitude 

 about benevolence, but, as the whole passage shows, is 



