226 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
as living things with an inheritance that cannot 
be ignored. That seeds in all appearance exactly 
alike should send forth shoots so unlike, is a 
wonder of Nature; and that young shoots in the 
same soil and with the same care should show 
such dissimilarity in development, is a riddle 
whose answer is to be found only in the binding 
laws of heredity, That a tiny bud inserted under 
the bark of a well-grown tree can change a sour 
root to a sweet bough, ought to make one care- 
ful of the buds which one grafts on the living 
trunk of one’s tree of life. The young orchard 
can teach many lessons to him who is willing to 
be taught; in the hands of him who is not, the 
schoolmaster has a very sorry time of it, no mat- 
ter how he sets his lessons, 
The side pockets of my jacket are usually 
weighted down with pruning-shears, a sharp knife, 
and a handled copper wire,—always, indeed, 
in June, when I walk in my orchard. June is 
the month of all months for the prudent orchard- 
ist to go thus armed, for the apple-tree borer is 
abroad in the land. When the quick eye of the 
master sees a little pile of sawdust at the base 
of a tree, he knows that it is time for him to sit 
right down by that tree and kill its enemy. The 
sharp knife enlarges the hole, which is the trail 
of the serpent, and the sharp-pointed, flexible 
wire follows the route until it has reached and 
transfixed the borer. 
This is the only way. It is the nature of the 
