VI 



PLANTS THAT KEEP A STANDING ARMY AND NAVY*, 



PLANTS THAT EMPLOY AN AERIAL SQUADRON ; 



PLANTS THAT KEEP SERVANTS AND 



LIVE STOCK 



EVERY great power or nation has found it 

 necessary to keep a standing army ; and, usu- 

 ally, the greater the nation, the larger the army. 

 It has been learned that the armed-nation system 

 is an incentive to peace; while war means waste 

 and general disaster. Hence the value of the stand- 

 ing army. 



This moral effect of keeping a standing army is 

 as apparent to plants as to men. There are some 

 plants which wage warfare ; others, being rich, pay 

 "blackmail" to their enemies, rather than fight 

 against them ; some actually hire soldiers and main- 

 tain an armed protective system. This is especially 

 true of certain plants growing in the tropics, which 

 are besieged by so many kinds of enemies, of both 

 the flying and the crawling type, that without their 

 armies they would be totally destroyed. 

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