498 WISCONSIN STATE AORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
The rain falls upon the earth and it^bursts into leafage. The sun 
shines upon it and it laughs back at him in all the beauty of a mil¬ 
lion flowers. The mountains tower up toward the blue sky, and the 
sky bends down to meet them. The shore slopes to the water and 
the water presses up to the shore. The moon and stars look upon 
the sea and it flashes back their radiance. Everywhere it is the 
old story of Steel and Flint. Throughout all nature this lesson is 
so plainly written that he who runs may read—may read as he runs 
without ever stopping to spell out the words, or to puzzle over their 
meaning—something for something. 
The. exceptions to the general rule render the rule itself still more 
striking. In all the world of nature there is nothing so worthless 
as the parasite—nothing so forlorn as the blasted tree. The first 
feeds on the life of its supporter, its benefactor, its friend; takes 
all and gives back nothing. By common consent it has been made 
synonymous with the meanest specimens of living beings that have 
human existence. 
What worse name can you call a man after you have called him 
a parasite?—since that very state of being breeds upon occasion in 
him all the other vices. And then, the blasted tree,—it is the type 
of a human being unresponsive to all influences for good. He 
might better be dead; for upon him do all the kindly agencies of 
mercy exhaust themselves in vain. 
He stands as the blighted tree stands. On it the rain falls and 
the sun shines; it gives back nothing; it is good for nothing but to 
fall and rot and become as leaf-mould—an enricher of the soil. In 
this, its last state, it is better than when it stood upright but use¬ 
less. 
The carcass of an idle preyer upon the substance of others can 
fill no better part if he remain obstinately shut up in himself. The 
sooner he falls and rots and his place knows him no more, the bet¬ 
ter for the world. He will then at least be the equivalent of the 
dead tree in usefulness—he will help to enrich the soil! It is bet¬ 
ter that such should not cumber the ground. Let others who are 
amenable to the great natural law of give and take, step into their 
places. 
The lack of an instinctive appreciation of this law causes many 
failures in life. There are people stupid enough to start out with 
the idea of getting all they can out of others and of giving nothing 
