SOME GARDEN VICES 
and stalk, staining the insects a harmonizing green or 
brown, so that they are not to be distinguished until, 
seizing the stem of a sweet-pea or a poppy, your hand 
makes a smeary mess of myriads, each of which has 
been sucking the life juice from the plant it helps to 
encumber. Even the mildest and best-behaved of gar¬ 
dens is liable to sudden lapses, to hideous indulgences. 
Sometimes you are tempted to believe that only the 
gardener is ever aware of the power and the omnipresence 
of evil. Some gardens simply turn lazy. Encourage 
them, prod them, feed them, and water them as you 
will, they retain an obstinate inertness. They grow 
nothing, they do nothing, they gape shamelessly in your 
face throughout the radiant summer. Or else they turn 
to weeds. Weeds are, of course, a constant tempta¬ 
tion to gardens, even those of the strongest charac¬ 
ter and finest manners. Hardly any garden but will 
devote twice the time and trouble to raising some par¬ 
ticularly ugly weed than it can be induced to bestow 
on the up-bringing of your loveliest annuals or most 
carefully cherished perennials. Human mothers are 
said often to prefer their misformed or wayward chil¬ 
dren to the good and beautiful ones. Gardens reveal 
this trait to a dismaying extent. The pity and love 
shown to its ugliest weed by the average garden is 
touching, if it were not so infuriating. It will spare 
no pains to convey to this voracious plant all the deli¬ 
cately prepared food destined for your lilies or your 
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