COMMON SENSE IN GARDENING 115 



wtat they know as arbitrary and isolated facts, just 

 as children learn a number of dates from bad teachers 

 of history; and these facts do not help them to learn 

 anything new. The best gardeners are those who 

 cannot endure that any fact they learn should re- 

 main arbitrary and isolated. Every plant is to them 

 a living and a reasonable being, and they wish to 

 understand it as the poet wishes to understand men. 

 They like to know the conditions of its native home 

 and to see how those conditions have made its char- 

 acter. They like to see how far it is adaptable to the 

 ordinary routine of the English garden, and whether 

 cultivation will improve it or injure it. 



Now, plants seem to differ in their adaptability in 

 the most arbitrary way. Speaking generally, one 

 may say that plants which have adapted themselves 

 to very abnormal conditions have usually exhausted 

 most of their power of adaptation in the process. 

 Plants which have learnt to grow among snow and 

 ice cannot endure the prosperity of a rich border. 

 What is meat to a Rose or a Pseony is poison to them. 

 But this is not always so. Some plants that have 

 learnt to thrive in adversity will also thrive in a pros- 

 perity not too gross; and in the same way there are 

 plants which, preferring prosperity, will also put up 

 with a good deal of adversity, while there are others 

 that will not endure adversity at all. The reasons for 

 these differences in adaptability are usually unknown. 

 One can only lay down a general rule, that the more 

 normal the natural conditions of a plant the greater 



