WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 79 



to the neighboring grape-trellis, and wound 

 their tendrils with the tendrils of the grape, 

 with a disregard of the proprieties of life 

 which is a satire upon human nature. And 

 the grape is morally no better. I think 

 the ancients, who were not troubled with 

 the recondite mystery of protoplasm, were 

 right in the mythic union of Bacchus and 

 Venus. 



Talk about the Darwinian theory of de- 

 velopment and the principle of natural se- 

 lection ! I should like to see a garden let to 

 run in accordance with it. If I had left my 

 vegetables and weeds to a free fight, in which 

 the strongest specimens only should come to 

 maturity, and the weaker go to the wall, I 

 can clearly see that I should have had a 

 pretty mess of it. It would have been a scene 

 of passion and license and brutality. The 

 " pusley " would have strangled the straw- 

 berry ; the upright corn, which has now ears 

 to hear the guilty beating of the hearts of 

 the children who steal the raspberries, would 

 have been dragged to the earth by the wan- 



