A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 183 



speckle defiling what remained. These Mallows had 

 been seedlings, raised in all the ways of healthiness, 

 but the puccinia had cut them down. I think that 

 plagues such as this, the potato blight that came with 

 the railway, the feebleness and helplessness of plants 

 sunflower and hollyhock and delphinium, that must 

 be made fast with stake and tar-cord, daffodils that 

 cannot stand on their own legs, but lay their heads 

 in the April mire these, and the imbecility of Lucy's 

 Minorcas, are a sort of retribution upon over-civilisa- 

 tion. We cross-breed and hybridise ; we strain after 

 size and weight, contemning the wholesome mean ; 

 and are punished accordingly in our works. The 

 mischief made by the professional florist among all 

 the blooms he has deigned to " improve ; " by the 

 professional fancier in every kind of domestic animal, 

 is a serious loss to the country. We have domesticated 

 half the natural quick sense out of the animal world 

 we use, and half the sound fibre out of the vegetable. 

 We might perhaps in time learn to refrain the grasp- 

 ing hand, leave some honey in the comb, some glean- 

 ings for wild nature put to tasks, and ultimately gain 

 the more ; but we should first have to unlearn full 

 half of our civilisation of man. 



In the afternoon there was a symposium under the 

 yew hedge. Margaret Fletcher and Helen Cottingham 



