LIFE AND CHANCE 



cropped back by the cattle; the first shoot is 

 browsed off half its length or more, but the push 

 of life is behind it, and it throws out one or more 

 lateral shoots; the ends of these are nipped, and the 

 shoots that remain again subdivide, thus causing 

 the would-be tree to spread out wider and wider 

 upon the ground. The cropping continues, every 

 new shoot is nipped, and the bush rises slowly as its 

 circle extends farther and farther. Its progress is 

 slow. Every season it goes through the same ordeal; 

 every nip from the cows is met by new subdivisions 

 of the shoots, till the rising bush becomes an impen- 

 etrable network of short, thorny branches. The 

 mass is so dense that only the small birds can enter 

 it. I have seen a song sparrow take refuge in it when 

 hotly pursued by a hawk. The hawk flies round and 

 round, unable to reach his victim. As inevitably as 

 fate, the mass rises in the form of a cone, pushing its 

 enemy farther and farther away till it is four or five 

 feet high and as many feet broad at the base. Its 

 triumph is now near at hand. Its top reaches a point 

 where the cattle do not easily reach; they neglect 

 the central twig at the apex of the cone; this shoots 

 up, and having the whole push of the extensive root 

 system of the tree behind it, grows rapidly as if in 

 a race for life. I see such a red-thorn daily in my 

 walks. Last year it won with this central shoot; this 

 year it has made rapid progress, and now it has a 

 stalk two feet high which the cattle cannot again 

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