ON ENVIRONMENT 



But may it not be because, for generations, we 

 have fostered them, and nurtured them, and cared 

 for them? 



May it not be because we have made it easy for 

 them to live and to thrive? 



May it not be because we have relieved them 

 of the responsibility of defense and reproduction, 

 that they have rewarded our kindly care by 

 Jruiting and blooming, not for their own selfish 

 ends, but for us? 



No man was ever kind to a cactus; no man ever 

 cultivated the sagebrush; no man ever cherished 

 the poisonous euphorbia. 



Is it, then, to be wondered at that the primal 

 instinct of self preservation has prevailed — that 

 what might have been a food plant equal to the 

 plum transformed itself into a wild porcupine 

 among plants? 



That what might have been as useful to the 

 horse as hay changed its nature and became bitter, 

 woody, inedible? 



That what might have been a welcome friend 

 to the weary desert traveler grew up, instead, into 

 a poisonous enemy? 



***** 



"If the bitterness, the poison and the spines 

 are means of self defense," thought Mr. Burbank, 

 "then they must be means which have been 



[11] 



