USEFULNESS IN NATURE 9 



At some later time, a sharp eye noticed that if insects 

 visited the cotton blossom, the seed was improved. Here 

 was a suggestion of another great principle, the principle 

 of improvement through crosses (Chapter XIII). 



So, too, the early horse was weak in body and slow of 

 foot. Because of their needs, the early farmers improved 

 it, as they improved the wild cow and the wild apple and 

 the wild wheat, from a condition of little usefulness to a 

 condition of greater and greater usefulness. 



The betterment of plants, animals, and farm machinery 

 rank among the greatest achievements of the human race; 

 but this betterment is the result of human needs. The 

 common things of the modern farm have been the products 

 of yearnings for greater comfort. This aspiration has 

 shown men how to transform the crooked stick with which 

 the first farmer stirred the ground into the spade, the plow, 

 the gang plow, the tractor plow. 



In this betterment there have been four distinct stages. First, man 

 used nature as he found her wild. Then he copied nature in her re- 

 production of like from like, as when he sowed the wheat, hoping only 

 to receive a grain like the wild grain. Then he observed how nature 

 sometimes made improvements, and he copied those methods; and 

 finally he experimented to find how to make improvements faster than 

 nature alone could make them. This last step is comparatively modern. 



8. Does Everything in Nature Have a Use? Every object 

 exerts influence on other objects, and we cannot foresee all 

 the consequences from the destruction of apparently use- 

 less things. Brook snails used to be thought useless ; but 

 now we know that they keep the water sweet by eating 

 the germs in it, and also that they contribute to the plu- 

 mage of a gorgeous waterfowl that feeds upon them. 

 Throughout nature the lower life contributes to the 

 higher life. 



In the present imperfect state of our knowledge we 



