special adaptation to the local conditions, these despised native
weeds would soon choke their choice exotic rivals. A century or two
hence, little beyond the foundations of the wall and of the houses and
frames would be left, in evidence of the victory of the cosmic powers
at work in the state of nature, over the temporary obstacles to their
supremacy, set up by the art of the horticulturist.

It will be admitted that the garden is as much a work of art,* or
artifice, as anything that can be mentioned. The energy localised in
certain human bodies, directed by similarly localised intellects, has
produced a collocation of other material bodies which could not be
brought about in the state of nature. The same proposition is true of
all the

* The sense of the term "Art" is becoming narrowed; "work of
Art" to most people means a picture, a statue, or a piece of
bijouterie; by way of compensation "artist" has included in its
wide embrace cooks and ballet girls, no less than painters and
sculptors,

[11] works of man's hands, from a flint implement to a cathedral or a
chronometer; and it is because it is true, that we call these things
artificial, term them works of art, or artifice, by way of
distinguishing them from the products of the cosmic process, working
outside man, which we call natural, or works of nature. The
distinction thus drawn between the works of nature and those of man,
is universally recognized; and it is, as I conceive, both useful and
justifiable.