'i? MIRACLES IN THE GARDEN 117 



summer or during a drought, the same plants 

 that in spring would have indulged in Solo- 

 monic dreams of a thousand children content 

 themselves with a dozen. While weeding I 

 have often been struck and almost touched by 

 the despairing, frantic efforts of a poor, mutilated 

 plant to leave something behind, be it only a 

 single seed. A plant lecturer on Malthusianism 

 or birth control would be promptly hooted out 

 of the garden by all the plants, weeds or no 

 weeds. 



Darwin, Wallace, Bates, Lubbock (don't fail 

 to read his Flowers, Fruits, and Leaves), and 

 other eminent naturalists have written on 

 mimicry, on the many ingenious contrivances to 

 secure the advantages of cross-fertilization by 

 attracting insects, and on other astonishing 

 manifestations of plant intelligence. Maeter- 

 linck's charming little essay, U Intelligence 

 des Fleurs, presents some of these romantic 

 facts in popular language. Have you ever read 

 a book describing the thorns and the acrid 

 juices and strong, disagreeable odors by which 

 desert plants intelligently protect themselves 

 against foraging animals? 



Here in the desert, writes Burbank, 



are plants which, although there may be not a drop of 

 rain for a year, two years, or even ten, still contrive to 

 get enough moisture out of the deep soil and out of 

 the air to build up a structure which, by weight, is 

 92 per cent water — plants which contrive to absorb from 



