Health 



knowledge of those laws is imperfect, but some of 

 Nature's secrets have been wrested from her, and not 

 all " blight " need now be regarded as beyond our 

 power to avoid. 



When a Uving thing is in health every part of 

 it is performing its allotted task perfectly, and all 

 parts are working harmoniously. As a result, just 

 as with a perfectly adjusted machine, its output 

 reaches its highest efficiency. Let any part of the 

 machinery get out of adjustment and the efficiency 

 at once falls. So with the plant ; and, except that 

 it is to some extent self-adjusting, a plant is very 

 similar to a machine : the derangement of any 

 one part will be likely to afifect the whole. It is 

 important to remember that its powers of self- 

 adjustment are Umited. 



The natural aims of a plant are two : to build up 

 and maintain its own body, and to produce offspring. 

 It may, and often does, sooner or later, sacrifice its 

 own body to attain the second object, as in all 

 annuals and biermials, but the first must be gained 

 to some extent before the sacrifice is possible. The 

 designs of the cultivator are not always those of the 

 plant. He frequently wishes to cause the develop- 

 ment of some part of the plant out of all proportion 

 to the rest, and the plant strives to respond to his 

 endeavours, but not infrequently at some risk to 

 itself and to its powers of resisting disease. He 

 often selects forms which in nature, because they 



2 



