60 THE HUMAN SIDE OF TREES 



best get along by hiding largely underground. The 

 hazel and other trees considered it advantageous to 

 adopt the habits of bushes. The great red oaks of 

 California found that they could only afford to 

 grow in large groups and thus protect their huge 

 bodies from the storms. The pine of the north 

 became the palm of the south. So it goes. Every 

 species of tree in existence is the direct outcome of 

 nature's class room work. And the term never 

 comes to an end. 



We are too apt to look upon evolution as a thing 

 of the past the process by which things arrived at 

 their present status. The laws of natural develop- 

 ment are just as much in force to-day as they ever 

 were, only we cannot expect to see in a single life- 

 time or several of them, results commensurate with 

 the changes wrought by centuries of patient effort. 



Every tree, like every worthy man, strives to 

 fulfil the highest and noblest destiny which the 

 limitations placed upon it will permit. A tiny 

 seedling pushing its way up into the dark, dank 

 atmosphere of some overcrowded forest is doomed 

 to death before it is scarcely born. A pine grow- 

 ing on some rough, exposed hillside can never at- 

 tain the symmetry and luxuriance of form possible 

 for its fortunate brother of the sheltered forest re- 

 serve. But each tree can strive to do its best, and 



