138 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



it would, at first sight, appear have no home, for they 

 seem to be at home every where. Turn up the soil, where 

 you will, to any depth, and such a rich abundance of 

 vegetable life is mixed with the loam, that almost instan- 

 taneously plants innumerable spring up from seeds, which , 

 may have lain slumbering for thousands of years in the 

 warm bosom of our mother earth. Man himself cannot 

 master this exuberance of vegetable life. He may change 

 it by cultivation, it is true, but that also only for a time. 

 And what is a generation, or two, in comparison with the 

 eternal earth? Do not, even in our day, and before our 

 eyes, lofty trees raise their proud heads, where our fathers 

 cut the green turf with their sharp plough? In vain does 

 man take the Alpine rose from the banks of its pure 

 mountain brook and plant it in the lowly valley ; in vain 

 does he bring costly seeds from the Indies and the warm 

 climes of the tropics, even to the ice-clad coast of Nor- 

 way. They live and pine and die. In vain does he some- 

 times seek to reverse nature itself. He places bubbling 

 fountains on the top of high hills, and plants lime-trees 

 and poplars between great masses of rocks ; vineyards 

 must adorn his valleys, and meadows spread their soft 

 velvet over mountain sides. But "naturam furca expellas, 

 tamen etsi recurret." A few years' neglect, and how 

 quickly she resumes her sway ! Artificial lakes become 

 gloomy marshes, bowers are filled with countless briers, 

 and stately avenues overgrown with reckless profusion. 

 The plants of the soil declare war against the intruders 

 from abroad, and claim once more their birthright to the 

 land of their fathers. The fine well-trimmed turf is smo- 



