HIT-AND-MISS METHOD OF NATURE 



in the orchard, hiding them, I fancy, in obedience 

 to some provident instinct, but really planting them 

 on Nature's behalf, which, of course, means ulti- 

 mately on his own behalf. 



The heavy nuts — walnuts, butternuts, chestnuts, 

 hickory-nuts — go unsown and rot or germinate in 

 vain under the parent tree, unless some hungry an- 

 imal carries them away as food. In the bare chance 

 that this will happen, and that the nuts so carried 

 will not all be eaten, but left where they can ger- 

 minate. Nature finds her account. Crows and jays 

 carry away acorns and chestnuts, but drop or hide a 

 fair percentage of them, so that the trees get widely 

 scattered. 



This is a hit-and-miss method, but the hits are 

 often enough to serve Nature's purpose; the game 

 is played on such an extensive scale that forests of 

 oak and chestnut and beech are the result. 



The one thing in this universe that Nature has not 

 been economical about is seed, and the fertilizing 

 principle. See the clouds of pollen she throws to the 

 wind from the pine-trees and from the grass in the 

 meadows; if one grain in a hundred hits the mark her 

 end is reached. It is by this heaping and overflowing 

 measure that the element of chance is neutralized. 



In the human world, over and above the play of 

 will, purpose, reason, choice, there is the rule of im- 

 personal Nature. The evolution of the race, of the 

 nation, is not in obedience to human will or fore- 

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