in the acadian land nature studies

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In the Acadian Land; NATURE STUDIES - it depends upon what taste and love of llature that one brings to tlie landscape or the woods, whether he will discover beauty therein. If the are only to be looked upon as an assemblage of trees serviceable for salv-logs, ship timber, cordwood, harrow-crotches and sled-runners, then this is the view of the browsing moose. He knows the locality ns a feeding-ground and shelter. We do not blame him for not looking deeper, because his natural capacity goes no farther. But man has finer endowments, that, if rightly cultivated and properly used, enable him to appreciate the beauty and diversity and infinite resources of nature. Even the great works of mens minds and hands arc worthy of study and admiration. How much more worthy are the products of tlie master niind that brings forth suns in gnlsxies, and finds room in the commonest toadstool to exercise n skill and power that passes our comprehension. It is the proper part of education, at home and in the school, to draw out these higher qualities of the mind, that show themselves in the eager curiosity and enthusiasm of childllood and youth. Alas, that our method9 are so well cnlculnted to suppress the opening buds of higher promise I Alas that the life star that was born with us fades into the light of common day and the vision by which me mere attended vanishes forever We will return to a consideration of trees and forests. The most unpromising feature in this directior one soon comes upon after entering the road. Here and there among the hoop-pole wire birch are dead pines - victims of fires that killed then1 many years ago. They are too crooked, and crotched, and beset with strong limbs and knots, to serve for lumber so they remain, scattered, gaunt, bare and gray, reaching out long naked arms defiantly to all minds. They are merely touched with decay only the sap, or last growth, an inch or two in thickness, has become tattered and weather-stricken all the rest is sound and strong. These pines are unlike those of the same species that grow in the thick forests of their kind. In those conditions there is hard competition for room to live. There thousands of seeds of pine sprout and begin to grow within a small area. It is simply impossible for them all to reach maturity, or even arrive to R height of a few inches. They will be thinned out by natzcral selection that is to say, those that are best fitted to continue will live. The advantage may be small, a mere bit more light or a better rootage or sounder seed, but on these points their lives . . depend. Many are called but few are chosen, - that is the universal law of all life. The straightest saplings with no more limbs than am needed will get their tops into the sunshine and their roots into good ground, and become gre at trees, smooth and clean. The closer together they grow the straighter they will be, and less ltnots and limbs. Scrubby specimens beginning life there, are doomed to decline and meet an early death. In the forests, all are shcltered from the force of the mind they stand by each other right loyally. But out on the open barren here and there a wind-wafted pine seed germinates and slowly gronTs... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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