68 My Little Farm 



and do, unless they show themselves capable of 

 responding to the advantage. Two of my Scotch 

 firs are specially instructive. One of them, 

 injured in early life, began, with my assistance, 

 reasserting his right to a place in the sun, sheltered 

 from the storms by the other, a rather powerfully 

 self-willed individual, with a touch of moral 

 anarchy in him. In addition to the shelter he 

 gives the little fellow, he invites all the birds to 

 his own branches, and when they tear down a 

 leading shoot, his superior strength enables him to 

 throw up another, a necessity under which the 

 little fellow would go under for ever. My rapidly 

 reviving invalid makes the most of his opportunity, 

 reaching resolutely up to that place in the sun, 

 and wasting not one tissue in any other direction. 

 In his own inherent wisdom, he knows that he has 

 either to grow or die, but he does not attempt an 

 agitation among his fellow weaklings to kill the 

 big neighbour who protects while threatening him. 

 On a windy day two years ago, I found the big 

 fellow beating him about the head with his arms, 

 and finding these, as I thought, unnecessarily long, 

 I shortened some of them an administrative 

 amendment in the native code of laws which has so 

 far worked well, though the permanent relations 

 between these two neighbours are not yet finally 

 fixed. It is really important to observe that the 

 guiding principle in government is not the 

 survival of the fittest, but rather the security of 

 all that are fit against the supremacy of organised 

 unfitness. 



