144 A Walk from 



the rootlets of the rose, and they transpose its hues, or 

 fringe it or tinge it with a new glory. He goes into 

 the fen or forest, or climbs the jutting crags of lava- 

 mailed mountains, and brings back to his fold one of 

 Natures' foundlings, a little, pale-faced orphan, crouch- 

 ing, pinched and starved, in a ragged hood of dirty 

 muslin ; and he puts it under the fostering of those 

 maternal fingers, guided by his own. Soon it feels the 

 inspiration of a new life warming and swelling its 

 shrivelled veins. Its paralysed petals unfold, one by 

 one. The rim of its cup fills, leaf by leaf, to the brim. 

 It becomes a thing most lovely and fair, and he intro- 

 duces it, with pride, to the court beauties of his crystal 

 palace. 



The agriculturist is taken into this co-partnership of 

 Nature in a higher domain of her activities, measured 

 by the great utilities of human life. We have glanced 

 at their joint-work in her animal kingdom. In the 

 vegetable, it is equally wonderful. Nature contributes 

 the raw material of these great and vital industries, 

 then incites and works out human suggestions. Thus 

 she trains and obeys the mind and hand of man, in this 

 grand sphere of development. Their co-working and 

 its result are just as perceptible in a common Irish 

 potato as in the most gorgeous dahlia ever exhibited. 

 Not one farmer in a thousand has ever read the history 



