Our artificially evolved domesticated plants are more subject to
disease than their wild prototypes, because they are not natural
survivals of the fittest. They are survivals only by virtue of the art
of man, inducing special properties pleasing to man's senses, and
therefore profitable for sale; but in the development of some such
special excellence, ability to elaborate protective defence is
generally neglected, and the special excellence produced may possibly
be antagonistic to the really sound constitution of the plant. It is
thus that cultivated plants are more in need of watchful care and
attention than their wild relations, and that, in the development of
quality, a sacrifice of quantity may be involved.
The observant hop grower notices constant changes in the appearance of
his plants from day to day under varying weather influences and other
conditions: a retarded and unhappy expression in a cold, wet and rough
time; an eager and hopeful expansiveness under genial conditions; a
dark, plethoric and rampant growth where too much nitrogen is
available, and a brilliant and healthily-restrained normality when
properly balanced nourishment is provided.
There should be sympathy between the grower and his plants, such as is
described by Blackmore in his _Christowell_; though in the following
passage with consummate art he puts the words into the mouth of the
sympathetic daughter of the amateur vine-grower, and gives the plant
the credit of the first advance:
"'For people to talk about "sensitive plants,"' she says, 'does seem
such sad nonsense, when every plant that lives is sensitive.
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