HIT-AND-MISS METHOD OF NATURE 



hit, but Nature takes it, and wins often enough for 

 her purpose. The superabundance of seed more than 

 offsets this element of chance. The seeds which the 

 winds carry travel to all points of the compass and 

 fall blindly here and there; a hundred or a thousand 

 fall where one finds its proper habitat. 



Nature is pervaded with an intelligence that dif- 

 fers in kind from that of man a blind, groping in- 

 telligence. Instead of taking short cuts, as man 

 does, and saving time and waste, she beats all about 

 the field, like a blind man looking for a gate. She 

 succeeds because she persists, and moves in every 

 direction. Her impulses are like the wavelet that a 

 dropped pebble starts in the pool, which reaches 

 every point upon the shore. She gets out of the woods 

 because she travels to all points. The winds, the 

 streams, the tides, do her errands; they search out 

 every place; they "finger every shore"; they cover 

 every square inch of ground. No matter how nar- 

 row the territory in which any species of plant 

 thrives, if it is winged, and trusts itself to the wind, 

 as most marsh plants do, it sooner or later finds its 

 proper habitat. 



The winged seeds of the cat-tail flag set out in 

 fleets upon the air, cruising for ditches and swamps; 

 they search all round the horizon, and sooner or 

 later a few of them find what they were looking for; 

 before you are aware of it, the ditch that drains your 

 land is choked with a growth of cat-tail flag. I say 

 77 



