UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
crop. They will continue to crop the cone beneath it 
as long as fresh shoots are put out, but as the life 
of the tree is more and more drawn off from this 
mound at the base, and transferred to the rising top, 
the base will soon cease to grow and will slowly die. 
So that in a few years more the tree will assume the 
shape of an hourglass, the upper half flourishing, 
the lower half at a standstill or slowly going back. 
And in a few years more the hourglass form will have 
faded; only a part of the lower half will remain, and 
so the tree, after a struggle of many years, will come 
into shape and drop its fruit to the cattle that were 
so bent on destroying it, and who, by eating this 
fruit, will plant more thorn-trees all over the land- 
scape. Not all species of trees possess this power of 
struggling successfully against their enemies. The 
linden, for instance, when cropped by the cattle, re- 
sorts to no such tactics as do the apple and the red- 
thorn. In its simplicity it pushes out new shoots 
each year to be cropped off by the cattle, and it 
never gets above their reach. The push of life is 
there, but it is along right lines. There is no ma- 
noeuvring for advantage, as with the thorn. 
The red-thorn in the pasture, struggling to be- 
come a tree, is a good type of life. Accident and 
destiny enter into its problem in due proportion. 
Accidents are analogous to the grazing cattle, and 
destiny to the inherent nature of the tree. All life 
is certainly more or less a struggle against opposing 
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