ssity; but we
are never in doubt as to their relative place in our esteem. One serves
the body, the other the soul; and we reward the one with money, the
other with affection and reverence. And our estimation of plants is
according to the same rule. Such of them as nourish the body are
good,--good even to the point of being indispensable; but as we make a
difference between the barnyard fowl and the nightingale, and between
the common run of humanity and a Beethoven or a Milton, so maize and
potatoes are never put into the same category with lilies and violets.
It must be so, because man is more than an animal, and "the life is more
than meat."

Again we say, let each fulfill its own function. One is made for
utility, another for beauty. For plants, too, are specialists. They know
as well as men how to make the most of inherited capacities and
aptitudes, achieving distinction at last by the simple process of
sticking to one thing, whether that be the production of buds,
blossoms, berries, leaves, bark, timber, or what not; and our judgment
of them must be correspondingly varied. The vine bears blossoms, but is
to be rated not by them, but by the grapes that come after them; and the
rose-tree bears hips, but takes its rank not from them, but from the
flowers that went to the making of them. "Nothing but leaves" is a
verdict unfavorable or otherwise according to its application. The
tea-shrub would hold up its head to hear it.

One of the most interesting and suggestive points of difference among
plants is that which relates to the matter of self-reliance. Some are
made to stand alone, others to twine, and others to creep. If it were
allowable to attribute human feelings to them, we should perhaps be safe
in assuming that the upright look down upon the climbers, and the
climbers in turn upon the creepers; for who of us does not felicitate
himself upon his independence, such as it is, or such as he imagines it
to be? But if independence is indeed a boon,--and I, for one, am too
thoroughbred a New Englander ever to doubt it,--it is not the only good,
nor even the highest. The nettle, standing straight and prim, asking no
favors of anybody, may rail at the grape-vine, which must lay hold of
something, small matter what, by which to steady itself; but the nettle
might well be willing to forego somewhat of its self-sufficiency, if by
so doing it could bring forth grapes. The smilax, also, with its thorns,
its pugnacious habi