ON GARDENING 



entitled to a little latitude of time considering that 

 our miracle, which includes the creation of a beau- 

 tiful flower, is so much more wonderful than his? 



Perhaps you are inclined to demur, and to say 

 that your miracle of flower-growing is no miracle 

 at all because you had nothing to do with the mat- 

 ter. The growing of the plant, with its ultimate 

 production of the flower, you will perhaps allege, 

 was altogether the work of nature; a work in 

 which you had no share. 



Not so; for had not you supplied the cupful of 

 water, nature would have been as powerless to 

 transform the seed into a flower as you would be 

 to transform the water into a flower without the 

 aid of Nature. 



Your feat of jugglery, like that of any other 

 conjurer, required appropriate paraphernalia and 

 the aid of an accomplice. 



You chose as paraphernalia a tiny seed and a 

 cup of water; and for accomplice you chose Na- 

 ture herself. 



You invoked the aid of natural laws, just as 

 every other conjurer must do; and the results you 

 finally achieved were surely more wonderful, more 

 mysterious, more inexplicable than the results of 

 any other kind of trick that human ingenuity could 

 devise. 



In effect, you held a cup of water before your 



[9] 



