228 An American Fruit-Farm 



instinctively when it reaches a land in which it 

 cannot live. 



It is instinctive in the animal world to migrate 

 for posterity. Most birds are migratory, journey- 

 ing far to nest and rear their young. All the birds 

 in the Fruit Valley come thither every spring from 

 the South, even the far South, Central America, 

 Brazil, and the islands of the tropic sea, and having 

 reared their young, return to the South in the au- 

 tumn. It is one of the amazing sights of Nature, — 

 the vast annual migration of the birds. It marks 

 the power of instinct common to the animal world, 

 — ^the instinct for the procreation and persistence 

 of life. Birds have their nesting-time and they 

 straightway seek their brooding grounds. Some 

 birds are not controlled by this impulse ; they never 

 leave the region of their nativity. 



I remember a farmer who not only lived for his 

 boys but with them. When the nest-building time 

 came for one of them, he joined in helping by 

 building as a wedding-gift a pretty house, and giv- 

 ing with it a handsome portion of the old farm. 

 There the nest-builders live to this day — the third 

 generation on the old farm. Had the father never 

 read the signs aright, his boys — and he treated all 

 alike — would have flown to pastures new, leaving 

 the old folks forever. 



After the children are bom, the parents dream 

 dreams and see visions ; there is more and more the 

 backward look; and as the children grow into youth 

 they too have visions, but their look is forward. 



