I love to think of Nature as a person—­first born daughter of God—­her head white with the snows of the centuries, her cheeks radiant with the flush of recurrent springtime, emblems of eternal youth.  She takes you by the hand, leads you into the forests, talks to you of the soul of the tree, tells you how intelligent it is.  There is one standing in the open.  It has performed a feat no civil engineer can emulate.  Think of those roots so busily scurrying around in the earth, gathering food to send up the cambium highway to nourish the trees.  See the taut cords thrown out to anchor it against the storms.  Look at those trees on the outskirts.  Among wild animals the strongest are on guard on the outside to protect the herd.  So these sentinel trees guard their wards against the storms.  Fool man cuts down the guards and the wards fall before the sweep of the storm.  Mother Nature—­dear, friendly soul—­takes you into her holy of holies and reveals her mysteries.  She makes a confident of you.  She throws open her doors and shows you the wide vistas of a new land you may enter and glorify.  Follow her direction, and what a friend you have!  Cross her, thinking you know more than she does, and she laughs at you.  She takes you into the garden and the nursery and discloses her wonders and helps you to work miracles.  You plant seeds and bulbs, and beauty rises to greet you.  Did you ever think of the royal position of the florist and horticulturist?

The sacred poet speaks of the “labor of the olive.”  What a flood of light that opens upon us.  “All things are yours.”  Let us go out into the grove you have planted.  I once took off my hat to myself.  While living in the Republican Valley, near the 100th meridian, I planted some bull pine seed.  When the little trees were large enough, I transplanted them in rows six feet apart and started a miniature forest.  Twenty-five years after I went to see them.  The rows were straight.  The trees had fine bodies six inches through.  They were miniature columns in a temple, holding up a canopy of green.  The ground was covered with a thick carpet of needles.  It was one of the most pleasing sights I ever saw.  Then I thought, “What if I had planted forty acres?” I would have had a Mecca to which horticultural pilgrims would have flocked from hundreds of miles.  I planted the trees, and the faithful servants kept on working day and night, and that beautiful grove was the result.  Every tree you plant is your servant, and how faithful it is—­no shirking, always at it whether you are looking or not.  Look at that cherry tree.  How the tiny rootlets scurry through the soil—­faithful children gathering food to send up to their mother.  Look at that flood of bloom.  Then the fruit grows till a mass of red gleams from the leafy coverts.  There is a great difference between a patch of brown earth and your faithful Jonathan.  What a marvel that little patch of soil, absolutely milked by those busy foragers, and the extracts of it glowing in red beauty on the tree.  Talk of chemists!  Those quiet rootlets surpass them all.