Way-bread. 1 5 



to a height of nigh a foot. The persistent efforts of 

 the gardener to exterminate it in the little lawn over 

 there, which had long lain in neglect and got overrun 

 prior to our coming to the place, brought out some 

 evidence that would almost suggest conscious con- 

 trivance. As he plied the lawn-mower systematically, 

 the plants more and more shortened the stalks, and 

 grew flatter and flatter under the leaf, contriving in 

 some sort to seed so without showing the flower or 

 seed-pod. There was nothing for it in the third 

 season but to settle matters by taking up each in- 

 dividual root with the daisy-grubber, for it was clear 

 that they would have contrived to live and to spread, 

 though in limited measure, however mowed, if the 

 roots were left, as they also propagate by root as well 

 as by seed. Such is their power of adaptation, which 

 almost makes me believe in some form of conscious 

 adaptation to circumstances. "Dr. Taylor's "Sagacity 

 and Morality of Plants " had thus a wonderful experi- 

 ence in its favour in observation of the ways of the 

 plantain on that lawn ; and out of respect for its sheer 

 persistency and its wise adaptiveness, I gladly yield 

 it a little corner in my rustic reserve. 



Way-bread, corrupted from waybred, it is called by 

 the people here because of its being bred on the way, 

 and its marvellous tendency to follow in the footsteps 

 of men, as if attached to the white faces, particularly to 

 the British. They say, it has followed our colonists to 

 every part of the world, so that it has been named by 

 the natives of some of our settlements, " The English- 

 man's foot." Can it be that there are in it hidden 

 elements of healing and purification not yet discovered, 

 which Providence means the white man to recog- 

 nise and take advantage of? The balance of nature, 



