My Boyhood and Youth 



the locust, and you will see that they are 

 arranged in a pod or legume like those of the 

 pea. And look at the leaves. You see the leaf 

 of the locust is made up of several leaflets, and 

 so also is the leaf of the pea. Now taste the 

 locust leaf." 



I did so and found that it tasted like the leaf 

 of the pea. Nature has used the same season- 

 ing for both, though one is a straggling vine, 

 the other a big tree. 



"Now, surely you cannot imagine that all 

 these similar characters are mere coincidences. 

 Do they not rather go to show that the Creator 

 in making the pea vine and locust tree had the 

 same idea in mind, and that plants are not 

 classified arbitrarily? Man has nothing to do 

 with their classification. Nature has attended 

 to all that, giving essential unity with boundless 

 variety, so that the botanist has only to ex- 

 amine plants to learn the harmony of their 

 relations." 



This fine lesson charmed me and sent me 

 flying to the woods and meadows in wild 

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