AUTUMN FRUITS 



A LTHOUGH autumnal changes are the beginning 

 jT\ of the end to annual plants and animals, and 

 involve a check to the vitality of many others that are 

 longer lived, there are other processes which work in a 

 life-preserving direction. There are preparations for the 

 Winter, such as the laying up of stores inside the bodies of 

 plants and animals, or outside the body as well in the case 

 of animals ; and there are preparations for next year, such 

 as the completion of bud-making or the regrowth of 

 damaged feathers. One autumn night we sat looking 

 down on the village from the hill above, and as we watched 

 all the lights were put out one after another, though some- 

 times it was simply that the blinds were drawn and the 

 shutters closed ; we felt that the day was indeed over ; but 

 as we looked longer, there rose in our mind the picture 

 of banked-up fires, of things set in order for the morning, 

 and of other preparations for a new day, besides the chief 

 preparation of rest. It is the same in the household of 

 Nature. When we turn to fruits, however, we have to do 

 with preparations, not for the individual, but for the 

 continuance of the race. In a sense they crown the plant's 

 work for the year, but their significance is not individual. 

 They protect and scatter the seeds, but all that is in them 

 is loss to the individual plant. In the organic see-saw 

 between nutrition and reproduction, fruiting is the extreme 

 uplift of the reproductive end. 



A fruit, regarded structurally, is the part of the flower 



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