But I soon found that my lines had fallen in a 

 place where a vegetable growth had to run the 

 gauntlet of as many foes and trials as a Christian 

 pilgrim. Flowers would not blow ; daffodils perished 

 like criminals in their condemned cups, without 

 their petals ever seeing daylight; roses were disfigured 

 with monstrous protrusions through their very cen- 

 tres, something that looked like a second bud 

 pushing through the middle of the corolla ; lettuces 

 and cabbages would not head; radishes knotted 

 themselves until they looked like centenarian's fin- 

 gers ; and on every stem, on every leaf, and both 

 sides of it, and at the root of everything that grew, 

 was a professional specialist in the shape of a gnat, 

 caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose business it 

 was to devour that particular part, and help murder 

 the whole attempt at vegetation. 



Olive r Wendell Holmes. 



The three first men in the world were a Gardiner, 

 a Ploughman, and a Grazier; and if any man object 

 that the second of these was a murtherer, I desire 

 that he would consider that as soon as he was so, he 

 quitted our profession, and turned builder. 



Abraham Coivlej. 



I can now understand in what sense they speak 

 of Father Adam. I recognise the paternity, while I 

 watch my tulips. I almost feel with him, too ; for 

 the first day I turned a drunken gardener (as he let 

 in the serpent) into my Eden, and he laid about him, 

 lopping off some choice boughs, etc., which hung 

 over from a neighbour's garden, and in his blind zeal 

 laid waste a shade, which had sheltered their window 

 from the gaze of passers-by. The old gentlewoman 



