WAYS OF NATURE 



law, the same as is the rest of nature. One genera 

 tion of men, like one generation of leaves, becomes 

 the fertilizer of the next; failures only enrich the 

 soil or make smoother the way. 



There are so many conflicting forces and interests, 

 and the conditions of success are so complex ! If the 

 seed fall here, it will not germinate ; if there, it will 

 be drowned or washed away ; if yonder, it will find 

 too sharp competition. There are only a few places 

 where it will find all the conditions favorable. Hence 

 the prodigality of Nature in seeds, scattering a thou 

 sand for one plant or tree. She is like a hunter shoot 

 ing at random into every tree or bush, hoping to 

 bring down his game, which he does if his ammu 

 nition holds out long enough; or like the British 

 soldier in the Boer War, firing vaguely at an enemy 

 that he does not see. But Nature s ammunition 

 always holds out, and she hits her mark in the end. 

 Her ammunition on our planet is the heat of the 

 sun. When this fails, she will no longer hit the 

 mark or try to hit it. 



Let there be a plum tree anywhere with the 

 disease called the &quot;black-knot&quot; upon it, and pre 

 sently every plum tree in its neighborhood will have 

 black knots. Do you think the germs from the first 

 knot knew where to find the other plum trees ? No; 

 the wind carried them in every direction, where the 

 plum trees were not as well as where they were. It 

 was a blind search and a chance hit. So with all 

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