WAYS OF NATURE 
law, the same as is the rest of nature. One genera- 
tion of men, like one generation of leaves, becomes 
the fertilizer of the next; failures only enrich the 
soil or make smoother the way. 
There are so many conflicting forces and interests, 
and the conditions of success are so complex! If the 
seed fall here, it will not germinate; if there, it will 
be drowned or washed away; if yonder, it will find 
too sharp competition. There are only a few places 
where it will find all the conditions favorable. Hence 
the prodigality of Nature in seeds, scattering a thou- 
sand for one plant or tree. She is like a hunter shoot- 
ing at random into every tree or bush, hoping to 
bring down his game, which he does if his ammu- 
nition holds out long enough; or like the British 
soldier in the Boer War, firing vaguely at an enemy 
that he does not see. But Nature’s ammunition 
always holds out, and she hits her mark in the end. 
Her ammunition on our planet is the heat of the 
sun. When this fails, she will no longer hit the 
mark or try to hit it. 
Let there be a plum tree anywhere with the 
disease called the “black-knot” upon it, and pre- 
sently every plum tree in its neighborhood will have 
black knots. Do you think the germs from the first 
knot knew where to find the other plum trees? No; 
the wind carried them in every direction, where the 
plum trees were not as well as where they were. It 
was a blind search and a chance hit. So with all 
QT 
