A GARDEN DIARY 23 
it, even as the hosts of heaven seem to grow 
and multiply as they recede before our straining 
gaze. For, if we even put aside the more 
active animal world, and look merely at the 
comparatively placid vegetable one, is it possible 
to think of it for a moment without being over- 
whelmed, as it were stunned, by the vastness 
of its effects; by the complexity of its untiring 
energy? To take only one of the results of 
that energy. It is the plants of the world, 
especially those which we are in the habit of 
calling its weeds, which constitute its great 
restraining forces. The operations of inorganic 
nature tend for the most part towards oblitera- 
tion; towards the rubbing down of landmarks, 
towards the effacing of all individuality in the 
landscape. Water, tumbling as snow, hardens 
into ice, and rasps away continually at the 
surfaces of the mountains. Rivers scrape off, 
and carry away with them, every particle of 
earth that they meet with on their journey to 
the sea. As for the sea, we know that its one 
object ever since it came into existence has 
been, day by day, and at each returning tide, 
to encroach upon, and devour more and more 
of the heritage of its brother the earth. Seeing 
that the land we live on occupies only about a 
third part of the superficies of the globe, it 
follows that the whole of what is now dry land 
could easily be disposed of below the water ; 
