160 A GARDEN DIARY 
we do not ourselves keep pigs, we hope that 
another season we may be less blessed! 
Biologists have a theory—they would call 
it a law—which they call the law of ‘ Multi- 
plication in Geometrical Progression.” By that 
law the plants of any region would, under 
favouring conditions, increase from a hundred to 
a thousandfold every year. Happily for people 
who wish to walk about they never really do 
anything of the sort; on the contrary, the 
population of any given district, apart from 
man’s interference, remains for the most part 
all but stationary. Until a parent is considerate 
enough to die, and make way for it, every green 
child that is born is bound to die in its infancy. 
These little oaks of ours are an excellent example 
of that fact, as well as of the summary fashion 
with which Nature is in the habit of wielding 
her maternal sceptre. They are, as anyone 
can see, as hale and as vigorous as could be 
desired; hearts of oak, every one of them, and 
they know it. Not an oaklet amongst them but 
sees itself in nightly visions as an umbrageous 
giant, lifting high in air a mighty trunk, and 
spreading out branches that all the fowls of the 
air could lodge upon with comfort. Alas, for so 
much prospective dignity! Every one of these 
youthful monarchs is doomed to an early death, 
and it is merely a question of what stage of im- 
maturity he will be called upon to perish at! 
