224 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



must have several barrels of water each day, and he robs the cherry 

 and apple tree and flowering shrubs of all that belongs to them. It is 

 snatch and grab without return. He is a great, heartless robber, just 

 like his brother down on Wall street, who wants to get rich and does 

 not care how it is done or how many he crushes. He has no soul. His 

 conscience, if he has one, does not fit. It is set on the bias and does 

 not worlt. 



Let us go into the forest. Take a look in Yellowstone Park. There 

 has been a great fire and the whole devastated area is springing up to 

 the Pinus Contorta. It is a pretty sight; there are hundreds of thous- 

 ands to the acre. You know, however, with an even start they cannot 

 all survive. It is the survival of the strongest. 



In human society some men absorb others. They get rich anyway. 

 You might divide up, giving to each one an equal share. It would not be 

 long before the few would get the money from the masses and keep it 

 themselves. Now watch those trees. In a few years you will see some 

 a little taller than their fellows. Sometimes a man gets a start off 

 his father — he left him a little money. Perhaps, now, that tree is living 

 off his dad. The old tree died and decayed, and that gives the young 

 fellow a start. His roots are better fed, he is living on the past as 

 well as the present. Some of his tentacles are reaching out in the earth 

 among his neighbors, and others are absorbing the dead tree. Well, 

 the young fellow has a start and he is bound to keep it. He grows 

 sti;onger every year and those near him grow weaker. A rod or two 

 away there is another in just the same condition. He is getting ahead. 

 As the years go by about one-tenth are shooting ahead of their fellows 

 and the upper ten " seem to have an understanding with each other. 

 "Now we have the advantage, we will keep it." Gradually they send out 

 their roots to rob the rest. Then they spread out their limbs toward 

 each other and gradually overshadow the smaller. They cut them off 

 both from sunlight and earth. And now comes a pathetic spectacle. 

 You often see a tree that seems gasping for the sunlight. It cares for 

 nothing else. All its efforts are in one mighty upward struggle. It 

 becomes more and more slender. I have often watched this race for 

 the light. The ambitious tree is attenuated almost to a thread. It 

 does not want to die. It must go up — up to breathe. It drops the 

 lower limbs. It drops everything and shoots upward. Such live longer 

 than their fellows, but sooner or later they are doomed. How is it 

 with the others? They are left behind, robbed of earth and sun; they 

 are dying. How about the grabbers? They are doing well. They have 

 organized a gigantic trust; they are going to take it all. Each tree Is 

 flourishing, but each has killed a hundred of its fellows in getting 

 there. They are murderers; they have killed tlieir neighbors; starved 

 them to death. What of it? "We must live and thrive, they had their 

 chance as well as we, but they got left, that is all." 



