MEN AND TREES 



Was Fate cruel to it? From the point of view of the 

 leaf, yes — could a leaf have a point of view; from 

 the point of view of Nature, no. The tree has leaves 

 enough left to manufacture the needed chlorophyl, 

 and that satisfies the law. If all the leaves were 

 blighted, or were swept off by insect enemies, or 

 stripped by hail and storm, that were a calamity to 

 the tree. But one leaf, though all the myriad forces 

 of Nature went to its production, though it is a 

 marvel of delicate structure and function, though 

 the sun's rays have beaten upon it and used it, and 

 been kind to it, though evolution worked for untold 

 ages to bring its kind to perfection — what matters 

 it? It will go back into the soil and the air from 

 which it came, and contribute its mite to another 

 crop of leaves, and maybe it has rendered the mole- 

 cules of carbon and hydrogen and oxygen of which 

 it is composed more ready and willing to enter into 

 other living combinations. And the fungus germs 

 that have preyed upon it, they, too, have had their 

 period of activity, and have justified themselves. 

 Nature thus pits one form against another, and her 

 great drama of life and death goes on. Are her stakes 

 more in the one than in the other, since she favors 

 both? Yes, she has more at stake in health than in 

 disease. If disease always triumphed, all life would 

 go out. Of course, in the sum total of things, the life 

 of this old tree counts for but little, but if it failed to 

 bear apples, its chief end would be defeated. Evil is 



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