Words & Books

Such are the tactics by which it finally defeats its bovine foes. Now,
if you have watched the progress of a particular shrub, you will see
that it is no longer a simple pyramid or cone, but that out of its apex
there rises a sprig or two, growing more lustily perchance than an
orchard-tree, since the plant now devotes the whole of its repressed
energy to these upright parts. In a short time these become a small
tree, an inverted pyramid resting on the apex of the other, so that
the whole has now the form of a vast hour-glass. The spreading bottom,
having served its purpose, finally disappears, and the generous tree
permits the now harmless cows to come in and stand in its shade, and rub
against and redden its trunk, which has grown in spite of them, and even
to taste a part of its fruit, and so disperse the seed.
Thus the cows create their own shade and food; and the tree, its
hour-glass being inverted, lives a second life, as it were.
It is an important question with some nowadays, whether you should trim
young apple-trees as high as your nose or as high as your eyes.


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