Here is a party of children chasing across the fields. Each one is searching for the flowers that have bloomed since last they were out, and each is trying to get more than his companions. The children have learned that some kinds of flowers grow in the woods, others in the marshy places, and still others on the dry hillsides. They know where to go for each kind, and not a spot escapes their sharp search.

Here they find a patch of violets, and all are quickly picked. There are some baby-blue-eyes, and yonder dry field is brilliant with the colors of many others. In the gathering of the flowers some of them are pulled up by the roots, but the children do not think of the harm this does.

They wander on and on until many have more in their hands than they can carry. Some of those picked first are already wilted, and, to make their burdens lighter, the children throw these away. At last a tired but happy band turns toward home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _H. W. Fairbanks_ The wild oxalis loves the moist, shady places.]

What will be done with all the flowers that have been picked? In each home the vases are filled and the tables decorated. There is no room for all of them and some are thrown out. These flowers, once so fresh and bright as they nodded in the breeze, now lie crushed and wilted on the ground.

Another spring returns and the children are out again looking in the familiar places for the flowers they know so well. But there seems to be something wrong, for there are not so many as there used to be. The children have to go farther and search more carefully to get their arms full.

Still a third spring comes and the children are just as ready for the happy excursions and just as anxious to get the flowers. They hunt the fields over, but in the places where the flowers used to be so thick there are only a few scattering ones. They cannot understand what is wrong, but Nature could tell them if they would ask her. The year before she was short of seed, but this year it is much worse, for she had hardly any to plant in her garden. She is short of bulbs also, and of many other plants that grow from year to year, for the children carelessly pulled these up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _H. W. Fairbanks_ Wild asters cover the mountain meadows.]

The children do not want to go home with only a few flowers, and so they wander farther into the country than they have ever been before. Here they find them as abundant as they used to be near home.

The children do not stop to think that at the base of the bright, fragrant blossoms grow the seed that will make the flowers of the next year. Nature can spare the seed of a part of the blossoms, for she grows many more than she needs; but if we pick them all, what can she do for the coming year?

The wild flowers are living things struggling for a place in the world, just as are the animals and birds. We cannot abuse and destroy too many of them if we would have them stay and add to the beauty of our homes.

Should we not take just as much pleasure in gathering the flowers if we did not bring home more than we needed? Would it not be better to be satisfied with smaller bouquets and leave enough in the fields to go to seed and gladden us next year?

The reckless gathering of wild flowers has gone on so long and they have been picked so closely about many of our towns and cities, that they are disappearing. When there are no longer wild flowers within reach of the children who live in the cities, they will have lost a great joy out of their lives.

There are besides the flowers of which we have been speaking other low plants of beautiful foliage with which we love to decorate our homes. We must take care that these are not gathered too closely or they also will become scarce. We cannot go out into the woods and pull up ferns by the roots year after year and expect Nature to keep up the supply.

The huckleberry is one of the many beautiful shrubs which we admire for its delicate leaves and colors. It is cut and brought in from the country in huge bundles to supply the florists. The time will come when these decorations can no longer be had if the men are allowed to cut all they can find. Just as in the case of the flowers, seekers for them will be obliged to go farther each year and by and by the shrubs will be so scarce and high priced that we shall be obliged to do without them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pillsbury's Pictures, Inc._ Nature has grown flowers in abundance, but we should not pick or destroy too many of them.]

We hunt far and wide for the beautiful "holly berries" with which to decorate our homes at Christmas. When we have found a berry-laden bush, we eagerly break off the branches and bear them home in triumph. The bush, once so gay with berries, is a sad-looking thing when we are through with it. The branches are broken so far back that next year it will bear few berries and we shall have to seek another.

We treat the beautiful earth on which we have been placed in a most thoughtless manner. We think only of what we want _now_, and forget that another year is coming in which also we shall want some of the earth's treasures. If we take only the surplus which each year produces, there will always be enough for us and for the people who live after us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

NATURE'S PENALTY FOR INTERFERING WITH HER ARRANGEMENTS

Nature seems very prodigal in her ways. She is continually creating on the earth a great mult.i.tude of living things, far more than there is room for. Each one of these, if it would live, must have a certain amount of air, sunshine, and food. As there is not enough of these things to supply every one, there arises a struggle. Those that are weakest die, because they are not able to get what they need. To us this seems hard, but it is Nature's way.

And further, since many of the animals feed on the flesh of other animals, the latter have, in addition to the struggle for their food, to watch constantly for their lives. Every organism is in one sense the enemy of every other one. We do not mean that they often try to kill each other because of hate, as men do, but that they are after food to satisfy their hunger. Some of the higher animals as well as men fight for mastery, in addition to struggling for food. We hope that among men the unnecessary fighting will sometime cease, and that kindness and unselfishness will rule.

The struggle for life is ceaselessly going on around us, but so quiet is it that we are not often aware of the countless tragedies that take place. This struggle extends from the plants and animals in the pond, so small that we cannot see them with the unaided eye, upward through all the larger animals.

The struggle among all living things helps us to understand the necessity for Nature's prodigality. If the plants and animals that serve as food for others were not produced in great numbers, they would soon become extinct. It is seldom that any one kind of plant or animal, because of its many enemies, has an opportunity to spread and obtain more than its share of food and sunshine. According to Nature's arrangements, each organism does its share in keeping down the numbers of the others. This we call the "balance of Nature."

Sometimes the balance of Nature is disturbed and one particular kind of animal gets the start of its enemies and increases until it becomes a _plague_. This may be caused by a favorable season or by the decrease of its enemies on account of disease among them. We have read of the plagues of gra.s.shoppers which have sometimes visited the Western states and eaten up every green thing. Plagues of rats and field mice have been known to do a great deal of damage. In such cases their natural enemies, the hawks, owls, and coyotes, may be attracted to the region from far around, because of the extra food supply. After a time they may succeed in reducing the numbers of these pests.

This balance among the animals, which comes from one living upon another, is a strange and wonderful thing. No one kind can long overrun its fellows. If one does get a start and increases until it becomes a pest or plague, some enemy is sure sooner or later to spring up to destroy it. We use this method in fighting some of the insect pests which are injuring our trees. Men have searched in various parts of the world from which such pests as the gypsy moth and the San Jose scale have come to find some of their enemies and bring them to this country to feed on these insects.

When men came upon the earth, they soon began to upset Nature's arrangements, and from that time until now matters of this kind have been growing worse. We have killed large numbers of the beneficial animals and birds that kept the harmful ones in check. We have carried others from the homes given them by Nature, where they were doing little harm, to new homes where they have become terrible plagues.

The killing of large numbers of hawks and owls, all the species of which many people have wrongfully thought to be harmful, has been followed by a great increase in the numbers of rats and mice. We have killed off most of the coyotes, the chief food of which was rabbits and ground squirrels. The two latter animals have now become a serious pest. They do enormous damage to the crops, and we spend thousands of dollars fighting them.

The common rabbit has in most parts of its native country so many enemies which are always on the lookout for a good meal, that it cannot increase enough to do much harm. Years ago a number of rabbits were taken to Australia, where there were none. Here they found a favorable climate and few enemies. They have now increased so that they overrun much of the continent and are a terrible pest which the farmers are unable to control.

Some years ago the gypsy moth and the browntail moth were introduced by accident into the New England states. Finding there a congenial climate and few enemies, they increased rapidly. They soon began to strip the leaves from the beautiful elms which make the streets and parks of this region so attractive. Now these moths have turned their attention to the white pine and are doing an ever-increasing amount of damage; and although they are being fought by every means in our power, we are not certain that we can ever control them.

The codling moth, whose larva is the little apple worm, causes an immense loss in our fruit orchards. The cotton-boll weevil, which destroys so much of the cotton, is, like the codling moth, an insect imported from another country. The San Jose scale reached California from China and has now spread throughout our country. It has a special fondness for the sap of fruit trees, and, being so small, was not noticed until it had got beyond control. This scale causes more loss than any other of the tree insects.

The Hessian fly, introduced from Europe more than one hundred years ago, causes during certain seasons a very great loss to the wheat crop. The Argentine ant has been brought to us from South America and is proving a most destructive pest. The Norway rat was brought to our country on sailing vessels and causes more loss than most of us realize. The English sparrow has spread over much of the country and is driving many of the native birds from their homes, because of its quarrelsome disposition. It makes itself a nuisance on all our city streets.

The mongoose, in its home in India, is a great rat killer, but does not there increase so as to do much harm. Wherever it has been carried for the purpose of using it as a rat killer, this little four-footed animal has become a terrible scourge. After it destroys the rats it goes after the snakes. Then it attacks the other small animals and birds. Finally it begins upon the chickens, and even the vegetables in the garden are not safe from its voracious appet.i.te.

Men are now watching at every port to see that no more dangerous insects and animals are brought into the country. They are particularly on the watch for the Mediterranean fruit fly and for the mongoose.

When we upset the balance of Nature, we start a whole chain of troubles.

What can we do to escape the consequences of our ignorance and carelessness? In the first place we can protect the birds, for they eat enormous quant.i.ties of the harmful insects. In the second place we can see that no more of these dangerous pests are allowed to land on our sh.o.r.es. In the third place we shall have to fight, by every means that we can discover, those that are already here.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

WHAT SHALL WE DO WHEN THE COAL, OIL, AND GAS ARE GONE?

If coal, oil, and gas were suddenly taken away, all the nations would become poor and many of their industries would cease. Just think for a moment of the amount of work these things do for us and what an effort there would be made to find something to take their place!

Wood once formed the chief fuel. It was used only to cook our food or to keep us warm. Now fuel is required for so many different purposes that with the decrease of the forests wood has been found insufficient.

Peat is one of those substances that has been used in parts of Europe to take the place of wood, but it is used so little in our own country that many have never seen it.

Peat is dug from bogs or marshes. We might say that a peat marsh is the beginning of a coal bed. Peat is the partly decayed vegetation which has slowly acc.u.mulated in wet places. In the colder countries it is formed largely of moss and similar water-loving plants, but where the climate is warm other kinds of marsh vegetation, and even trees, aid in forming peat. Sometimes floods bring earth and deposit it in the marshes, in which case the peat is less suitable for fuel, but forms a rich and productive soil instead.

In many of the vast swamps of long ago, when there were no men nor even the higher animals upon the earth, vegetation grew very rank. It is believed that at that remote time the air contained more carbonic acid, a substance which promotes the growth of plants. Thus the plants in the warm, moist parts of the earth grew more densely and luxuriantly than they usually do today.

In the decay of this vegetation deposits similar to the peat marshes were formed, but they differed in being much thicker and more extensive.

If the story of these ancient peat marshes had stopped here, we should never have had any coal. Fortunately it did not, for some of the swamps sank beneath the water of a lake or ocean and thick beds of gravel, sand, or clay were deposited over them. While buried deep in the earth, the decaying vegetation was heated and pressed together by the great weight of the earth above, and was finally changed to shining, black coal.

After the coal was made, but before men came to the earth, parts of the sea bottom with its buried treasures were raised to form hills and mountains. Then the rainwater began its work upon the slopes, and after a time washed away so much of the overlying material that the coal was exposed at the surface. At last through some accident, such as lightning perhaps, men learned that this black substance would burn. Coal was little used, however, as long as there was an abundance of wood and the needs of people were few.

As manufacturing and the use of the steam engine increased, coal grew in value. The business of mining coal finally became one of the great industries. The mining operations were carried on as carelessly as though the supply in the interior of the earth were inexhaustible. In the underground working it is customary to leave about one quarter of the coal in the form of pillars for the purpose of supporting the roof.

At a little more expense other materials could be subst.i.tuted for these pillars and all the coal could be taken out.

In using the coal we waste about another quarter. Stoves and furnaces are usually built so poorly that a large part of the value of the coal escapes as gas and smoke. In large cities and manufacturing districts the smoke becomes a great nuisance. In the making of c.o.ke from coal, enormous quant.i.ties of coal tar and gas have been lost. Most engines consume a far greater amount of coal than they should in doing a given amount of work. Most of us do not know how to use coal economically in our homes, and thus aid not only in wasting the coal supplies but in making the cost of living higher than it should be. All together, in the handling of coal we lose fully half of it. The coal supply of the earth is disappearing very fast, and at the rate at which its use is now increasing it may not last more than one hundred years.