A GARDEN DIARY 23 



it, even as the hosts of heaven seem to grow 

 and multiply as they recede before our straining 

 gaze. For, if we even put aside the more 

 active animal world, and look merely at the 

 comparatively placid vegetable one, is it possible 

 to think of it for a moment without being over- 

 whelmed, as it were stunned, by the vastness 

 of its effects ; by the complexity of its untiring 

 energy ? To take only one of the results of 

 that energy. It is the plants of the world, 

 especially those which we are in the habit of 

 calling its weeds, which constitute its great 

 restraining forces. The operations of inorganic 

 nature tend for the most part towards oblitera- 

 tion ; towards the rubbing down of landmarks, 

 towards the effacing of all individuality in the 

 landscape. Water, tumbling as snow, hardens 

 into ice, and rasps away continually at the 

 surfaces of the mountains. Rivers scrape off, 

 and carry away with them, every particle of 

 earth that they meet with on their journey to 

 the sea. As for the sea, we know that its one 

 object ever since it came into existence has 

 been, day by day, and at each returning tide, 

 to encroach upon, and devour more and more 

 of the heritage of its brother the earth. Seeing 

 that the land we live on occupies only about a 

 third part of the superficies of the globe, it 

 follows that the whole of what is now dry land 

 could easily be disposed of below the water ; 



