88 AN ISLAND GARDEN 



his appliances. . . . The little Daisy, which has 

 painted its ' wee crimson-tipped flowers,' puts the 

 chemist and scientific man to shame, for it has pro- 

 duced its leaf and stem and flowers, and has dyed 

 these with their bright colors from materials which 

 he can never change with all his arts." 



By what power do they know how to select 

 each its own hue and shape, when earth and air 

 hold all the tints and forms that the Creator has 

 invented? The subtle knowledge of plants, in- 

 stinct perhaps would be a better word, is astonish- 

 ing. If you dig a hole in the ground and put 

 into it a Rosebush, filling one side of the hole 

 with rich earth and the other with poor soil, 

 every root of that Rosebush will leave the poor 

 half to inhabit the rich and nourishing portion. 

 That is a matter of course, but the instinct of the 

 Rose is something to think about, nevertheless. 



Some one has said, speaking of a tree, " What 

 an immense amount of vitally organized material 

 has been here gathered together! It is God's 

 own architecture ! This mass of vegetable mat- 

 ter is only earth and air that have undergone 

 transmutation. The material alike of wandering 

 zephyrs and rushing storms, of gently descend- 

 ing night-dews and angry thunder-showers has 

 been here, on this spot, metamorphosed." 



And I should add that into this piece of archi- 

 tecture God has breathed a vital spark, almost a 

 mind, so remarkable is the intelligent action often 

 manifested in many plants and trees. 



A famous Frenchman, Camille Flammarion, 

 says : " I know a maple-tree which was dying on 

 the ruins of an old wall, a few feet from good rich 



