fertilizers: — agricultural, intellectual, etc. 179 



and in his home, and what gave to him his enthusiasm and his 

 success, — than do any of his large folio volumes. It tells the 

 secret of his strength, and of that magnetic influence of his, and 

 of the source of his own great enjoyment ; — tells how he looked on 

 plants almost as on animated beings, responsive to human affec- 

 tion. The title, — doubtless you all know it, — is "How Plants 

 Behave : How they Move, Climb, Emploj' Insects to Work for 

 them, etc." 



Is it not beautiful, this attitude of his towards plants and 

 flowers? Childless was he? Yes, in one sense, yet he had a 

 thousand children of his love ! You see what I mean. So it is 

 that I say this enriching, fertilizing, of the mind and heart is to 

 the horticulturist of peculiar worth. Every day yields him flowers 

 of beaut}' richer than orcliids, and offers to him the choicest fruits. 



How the learned, loving Evelyn, — learned in classic and in 

 nature's lore ; lover of every tree and plant that grows, — how he 

 reveals himself to us, simply b}' the wa}' he phrases some of his 

 most practical suggestions on the culture ©f trees. When he 

 would tell us not to shorten in the aspen, else it will not thrive, 

 and that the palm tree will not bear transplanting, he sa3's, "The 

 aspen takes it ill to have its head cut off :" and, " There are few 

 trees like the homesick palm, which will not quit its place of 

 birth." How those two little phrases open to us his heart, tell us 

 how large a field he walked in, and how much he must have 

 enjoyed in his converse with Nature. 



Eliot Cabot, in that delightful biography which he has just 

 written, tells us of the great satisfaction which Ralph Waldo 

 Emerson found in his wood lot. " My spirits," said Emerson, 

 " rise whenever I enter it. I can spend the entire day there with 

 hatchet and pruning shears, making paths without remorse of 

 wasting time. I fancy the birds know me, and even the trees 

 make little speeches, or hint them." 



In that very publication to which I just referred, " Garden and 

 Forest," under the notices of new books, it is assumed that, as 

 matter of course, the horticulturist is a man who seeks to cultivate 

 a capacit}' for intellectual enjoyment by a careful study of what- 

 ever is akin to his interest in his garden. Speaking of the book 

 written by W. Carew Hazlitt, entitled " Gleanings in Old Garden 

 Literature," it says: "This book should find a place on the 



