202 N ATUR E. STU D Y . 



was the main stem, the apex of the trunk, at the top of the 

 tree. 



This unusual cluster of pine cones is one of those ob- 

 jects in nature which people call "freaks," until they 

 learn that nature never wastes time or energy in silly per- 

 formances, but always has a good reason for everything 

 that it does. It is so far from being a freak that it is in- 

 stead a memorial of the desperate effort of a wounded tree 

 to produce seeds quickly and abundantly that there might 

 be other trees of its kind when it was dead and gone. 



It is the special business of every plant or tree to grow 

 seeds, and if it is injured it will make a greater effort, as 

 if it were really conscious and felt that its time was short. 



If a grapevine is pruned it will bear more grapes, and if 

 a fruit tree is trimmed it will yield more fruit, at least for a 

 time. 



Something happened to the topmost bud on the stem of 

 the tree that bore this great cluster of cones. Probably 

 an insect stung it, laying an egg in it, and the grub that 

 hatched from the egg ate the life out of it. 



The tree was hopelessly ruined. It might send its tap- 

 root down deeper in the earth ; its branches might contin- 

 ue to spread outward ; its stem might thicken ; but it 

 would never reach higher toward the sky. Its hopes were 

 blasted. If nothing had happened, if it could have gone 

 on growing upward, it would have taken its time about 

 the seeds. It was a young tree, and some years might 

 have passed before it bore cones at all. Then it would 

 have scattered them about, a few in a place, often one 

 alone, sometimes three, rarely five, in clusters on its 

 branches. 



But the young pine had been wounded. It could grow 

 no taller, and it behaved as if it knew that what it was to 

 do mu.st be done quickly. It hurried its sap to the in- 

 jured part and put out a multitude of buds, many of which 



