October 26, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
369 
I RE MEMBER being almost bewildered by a sentence in one of 
Darwin’s books. “ Few plants,” said be, “ grow on the soil or 
in the locality best suited for their requirements.” This seemed 
for the moment contradictory to his whole hypothesis, but carefully 
thought out it is only a seeming paradox, not a real one. Its 
parallel in human sociology is, “ Few men live and work under 
circumstances they are best adapted for.” We should all be much 
better than we are if our environment were better. We can all of 
us imagine a set of circumstances under which our natural virtues 
would flourish exceedingly, and our no less natural vices diminish. 
We, like the plants Darwin spoke of, grow and flourish as we best 
can, where we are allowed to do so. We are where we have drifted 
to by the exigencies of the struggle for existence. Plants grow 
where they can. Heather grows on the moors, not because it 
could not grow on better soil, but because, on better soil, plants 
that could not grow on the moors can grow there, and do so, 
choking the Heather at its starting point. I do not know if 
Heather is the best illustration I could have given, but it will 
serve. What do you think Heather would develop into if tended 
and nursed under the circumstances which, if we knew them, 
were best fitted to it ? Rhododendrons grow in the Himalayan 
districts into huge trees—lurid masses of blazing glory, as large as 
the Major Oak at Clumber ; and who shall say our humble 
Heather might not develop into beauty as great ? Mignonette, an 
annual plant, can, by care and culture, be made to grow a bark, 
and be developed into a tree strong enough to brave an English 
winter in the open. Nay, of what can be done we know nothing. 
Our wildest dreams, of necessity, must fall far short of realising 
the fathomless stores of energy and inherent power of development 
in organic life. The great chemist Nature had behind her the infinite 
power of infinite wisdom, and that which these thought fit to start 
cannot but be worthy of the starter ; to say otherwise is to make 
a statement not logically thinkable. With infinite potentiality, 
then, in all organic life there is ever-abundant room for greater 
and still greater amplification of result. Every step upwards points^ 
with increasing certitude, to another still higher, the way to which 
lies through patient study of Nature. All study of Nature is 
ennobling, lifting our sordid souls from the grovelling selfishness 
of life as it is to the altitude of life as it should be. 
I know nothing of Chrysanthemums. I know that “ chrysos ” 
is the Greek word for golden, and “ anthemon ” is the Greek 
word for flower, so I presume the original flower was yellow, 
but I think they are now all the colours of the rainbow, and 
might very well be rechristened “ Irisanthemum.” This is all I do 
know about them, and am not at all sure that I know this much 
with certainty. The Chinese get Roses as large as a dinner plate 
by resolutely nipping oflE every bud but one, and I know the 
Japanese can get a whole forest of trees in full leaf and form on 
the same dinner plate by as resolutely pinching off every tendril 
as fast as it forms, and I do not know any reason why you should 
not grow a Chrysanthemum as large as an umbrella, or as small as 
a Forget-me-not if you wish to do so. 
But what is soil composed of ? This is a question oftener and 
much easier asked than answered. It is broken down, storm rent. 
rock, and broken up clays, the debris of sandstone and limestone, 
the sediment of rivers, the forces of flood and fire, earthquake, and 
thunderstorm, the wear and tear of traffic, meteoric showers, the 
dust of broken up worlds wandering in space, all contribute their 
quota to the soil. Newspaper correspondents tried to make merry 
over the non-arrival of a comet not long ago. It does not strike 
these would-be humourists that the comet is very largely composed 
of dust, and if one struck us we should only consider it an unusu¬ 
ally dusty day. Whence comes the sand and dust that buries 
cities such as Carthage, Troy, Babylon, and Nineveh, Palenque, 
and Copan ? Years ago Russia, with her usual honesty, bought 
territory from the Kirghiz chiefs at a price the Russians fixed, 
and collected “ voluntary ” signatures by the playful flourishing 
of rifle and sword, and allowed the sellers to build RussiaB 
forts on the territory so sold, finding the bricks free of cost to 
the buyers. A bargain you will admit ; a trifle one-sided, perhaps, 
but distinctly sweet to the Russian palate, if not to the Kirghiz 
taste, and you know it is difficult to please both sides when a good 
bargain is made. How was it these perspiring Kirghiz brought 
better bricks than they or the Russians knew how to make ? The 
Russians, very scientific and inquiring people, wanted to know, and 
the unscientific Kirghiz did not want to tell, but the Russians know 
several sciences, one of them relating to the conversion of silence 
into eloquence by the application of stout sticks to the soles of 
tender feet. By these means they got into conversation with their 
brickmakers, and discovered that the particularly good bricks had 
been found in the soil, and were the top of a cupola. Well now 
cupolas mean cities not very far away, and there are no doubt 
buried cities in abundance in Siberia. The Kirghiz steppes are full 
of tombs, evidently tombs of chiefs buried in their war trappings, 
and their trinkets of gold and silver beside them, and thousands of 
such tombs mean many cities ; they are not on the surface, and 
are therefore probably beneath it, as the cupola was, and the blow¬ 
ing about of dust from place to place does not quite account for 
buried cities. There must be continuous showers of meteoric dust, 
which our earth receives in her rush through space. 
We must then consider soil partly, and in large part the ruins of 
former worlds. Liebig, the father of agricultural science, as he is 
very rightly named, makes much of humus and humic acid in the 
soil, but these are but the relics of decaying vegetation, and their 
fermentations. To the kindly embrace of Mother Earth go back 
all vegetable and all animal life ; and it may be taken as an axiom, 
that anything that has come out of the soil acts the part of good 
manure on being put back into it. Cabbage or cow, mast or man, 
duckweed or dude all alike spring from the soil, and returned 
thither revivify and renew the face of the earth. Nature is 
restless, incessant change is the one persistent law of all life. A 
generation rises, flourishes and decays, and in its decay nourishes 
the following generation. Herbert Spencer thinks Nature seeks 
stable equilibrium, and it may be so. It is nothing paradoxical to 
say she seeks it by non-stability, and if she seeks at all it can only 
be by non-stability. Rest is brought about by unrest, peace is 
sought by means of war. It is inevitable that if Nature is seeking 
aught, it is perfection. As the working power of All Good, can she 
seek aught else ? As the agent of All Wise, can she seek anything ? 
Granting that she seeks perfection, can perfection be reached? 
Our mental fingers fail to grasp the idea of a time when nothing 
can be improved. Should that time arrive, it will be the Nirvana 
of Buddhism. Mental effort must then cease, and a dull conscious¬ 
ness be all and in all to all the sons of men. But we are getting 
away from the soil to the cloud, let us get back to the earth ; but 
we shall land in the clouds again and again, for all the paths 
human thought can travel lead thitherwards, and lose themselves 
and us also in the impenetrable folds of Nescience. 
To analyse soil is at present impracticable. We can analyse 
flowers, tubers, plants and roots, but to do so we must first get 
rid of the water. Water plays a strangely important role in this 
No. 2352.— VoL. LXXXIX., OLD Seeies. 
* Read by Mr. W. Pickard at Sheffield. {Concluded from page ZiS.) 
No. 696. —VoL. XXVII., Third Series. 
