TREES AND THEIR METHODS 93 



expert gardener to keep its supply of air, water, 

 sun and soil nutriment just right, it might succeed. 

 As it is growing out in the busy element-racked 

 world, it is forced to make slight changes in its 

 plans before it is a year old. The first thing it may 

 notice is that there is too much moisture in the air 

 to suit its particular style of beauty. Just when it 

 is getting adjusted to that, a drought comes along 

 and conspires with an unusually hot sun to burn 

 it off the face of the earth. Weakly escaping, it 

 is all but uprooted by a hurricane and given a per- 

 manent tilt to leeward. In its fifth year some un- 

 gainly animal attempts to tread it under foot and 

 only succeeds in giving an ugly and life-long droop 

 to one of its most promising branches. So it goes 

 all through the years. Our brave sapling spends 

 most of its thought and energies in adapting itself 

 to new and trying conditions. It is in the grip of 

 the famous "survival of the fittest" regime. As it 

 succeeds in surviving, we admire or pity it. 



The vicissitudes of a forest tree and those of a 

 man-tended garden tree are quite different, with 

 a corresponding divergence in their business meth- 

 ods. In a dense wood there is what one might 

 call a free-for-all fight for air, water and earth 

 continually in progress. Weak brethren are 

 crowded not to the wall but up against the dense, 



