A GARDEN DIARY 35 



poor little savings ? your petty extravagancies ? " 

 we might imagine her saying, "that they should 

 be likened to mine ? " Further, by an odd 

 paradox, it is upon her wastefulness that our 

 thrift rests most securely. We possess say one 

 solitary plant of some given kind, and we find 

 that with that single plant her lavishness has 

 freely provided us with the material of a 

 hundred, possibly many hundred others. There 

 is scarcely a plant we can name that by some 

 means or another by division, by layers, by 

 seeds, by cuttings, or by some other equally 

 simple variation of the garden craft may not be 

 multiplied almost without limit. Truly there is 

 something staggering about such fecundity, and 

 the brain of even the strongest gardener might 

 be expected to whirl as he contemplates it. 

 Following in imagination the history of almost 

 any flowering plant yonder pimpernel astray 

 on the gravel will do giving it only time 

 enough, a fair field, and not too many rivals, 

 and we shall find that it has gone far towards 

 peopling every waste place within reach ; nay, 

 if the process could be continued long enough, 

 by the mere law of its organic existence its 

 descendants are capable of reddening their entire 

 native countryside for a dozen miles around. 



