UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
poison-ivy, and the like; but it serves the purpose; 
the hungry birds are quick to lend a hand. If the 
plants and vines and trees had minds and could 
answer our question as to what is passing in them, 
they would say: “We are thinking how best to per- 
petuate our species — how to attract the insects to 
visit the flowers, and thus secure a hardier race by 
cross-fertilization; how to tempt the birds and four- 
footed creatures to come and sow our seeds; how to 
protect these seeds and nuts till they are ripe and 
ready to pass along the precious heritage of life; 
hence some of us trust to the winds and the waters 
to secure fertilization, in which cases we do not need 
to develop bright or showy flowers, but a super- 
abundance of pollen; for sowing our seeds, some of us 
devise wings and balloons; others devise hooks and 
hands that seize upon passing animals; others make 
use of the tension of springs and other mechanical 
devices. We heavy-nut-bearing trees enter into 
partnership with squirrels and crows and jays; they 
carry our nuts to distant woods and fields; some 
they carelessly drop by the way, some they hide 
under the leaves or in the grass, and we find our 
account in each. They unwittingly plant more oaks 
and chestnuts and hickory-trees.” 
Nearly all the animal orders below man are 
equally obsessed with the idea of perpetuating their 
species; for this they live, for this they die. It is a 
kind of madness; it leads to all kinds of excesses and 
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