THE KINDLY FRUITS OF THE EARTH 



green samaras, its ripened fruit, upon the side- 

 walks of our cities even as the leaf buds begin 

 to swell. The Mountain Elder fruits as the 

 Common Elder is coming into bloom. But these 

 exceptions do not change the general order of 

 life that autumn is the great ripening and stor- 

 ing period of the vegetable world. Somehow 

 the plant life of temperate regions has become 

 aware of wnnter, and behaves as if it realized 

 that what is to be done must be done quickly. 



Now comes the struggle of the vegetable world 

 to overcome its great handicap — the immobility 

 of the plant. The parent organism is in revolt 

 against this law and struggles continually to 

 transgress and evade it, and either to invent or 

 evoke legs or wings for its offspring. Thou- 

 sands of seeds must be produced because so few 

 survive, and quite incidentally, as it were, the 

 animal world is fed. Nature works very effi- 

 ciently by indirection and accomplishes one 

 thing when apparently doing another. So the 

 plant rooted to its place strives ever to send its 

 seeds a-journeying. 



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