92 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



turned in the right direction or not, and are influenced by 

 electric currents passing near them.' " 



Who shall say that this is not all true, or deny that trees 

 are endowed by nature with some kind of conscious intelli- 

 gence and feeling ? Their actions plainly show it. The 

 modest, little "sensitive" plant shrinks at the touch of man ; 

 all kinds of vines, instinctively, as if they saw, grow toward 

 and stretch their tendrils to grasp a foreign support ; while 

 in the crowded woods tree-tops keep away from and leave 

 room for each other with a kindly consideration that puts to 

 shame the selfishness of man. Is it incredible that the great 

 Entity we call God, the "unknown God," who "is in all, over 

 all and through all," of whom all nature and the universe is 

 the visible expression, has also endowed the trees, plants 

 and flowers with some sort of capacity for pain and pleasure ; 

 and that, if our dull eyes and ears could but be opened to the 

 mysteries of tree life, we should see their expressions of de- 

 light over the opening blooms and flowers with which they 

 decorate themselves in spring, and the golden fruit in sum- 

 mer, and hear their cries of pain under the torture of the 

 pruning-knife, the cultivator and the plow? One cannot look 

 upon the dead and dying fruit trees that abound in all our 

 orchards, stretching out to heaven their poor, blackened 

 limbs and yellow, withering leaves in silent protest against 

 man's inhumanity to trees, without feeling that they have 

 really and truly suffered during the long years of such treat- 

 ment. But a better day is dawning for so-called inanimate 

 nature, and, with a view to hasten it, I will next point out 

 some of the evil effects of cultivation which have forced them- 

 selves under my observation, since the preceding chapter on 

 that subject was written, twelve years ago. But, before doing 

 so, I wish to state that the three sod experiments alluded to 

 were made intentionally under the most trying conditions, 

 and also to show that thousands of acres of New England 

 " abandoned farms," and hilly as well as rocky locations else- 

 where, in sections of average rainfall, could be profitably set to 

 fruit trees, especially apples; though, of course, growth would 

 not be so rapid as if they were cultivated a few years, until 

 the trees began to bear, and then put down to a mowed sod. 



