Even the lesser growths of the old woods are passing away. Some, as the carpeting sphagnum and the sprawling hobble bush, disappear through changed conditions; others, as the medicinal spikenard, sarsaparilla, and ginseng, and the decorative running pine and the arbutus, through ruthless, greedy gathering, which leaves no root nor ripened seed to perpetuate their kind. An old man may be glad that his eyes are not to behold the coming desolation, but he must be sad when he thinks of the poor inheritance of his children. LI THE PERSISTENCY OF PESTS From the sowing and planting of his seed, almost indeed from the turning of the furrow, the farmer enters upon a contest with the weeds, for a place in which his crops may grow, and if he or the crops are not vanquished, as the weeds never are, the warfare continues till harvest time. While he, with infinite labor, prepares the ground and sows his seed with all care, praying that drouth may not wither nor floods drown it, and that frosts may not cut down the tender plants, the winds of heaven and the fowls of the air scatter broadcast the seeds of the noxious weeds, or these lie dormant in the ground awaiting opportunity. They germinate in sterile places, fence corners and nooks of the wayside, and flourish alike in scorching sunshine and in sodden soil. Weeds defy the latest and the earliest frosts, grow with their roots in the air; and cut down, spring up, grow on, blossoming and ripening their seed in creeping stealth and ever unscathed by blight; and so flourish in spite of all unkindliness of man or stress of nature, that the husbandman wishes that they might by some freak of demand become the useful plants, his present crop the undesired ones. Somewhat the same position in which weeds stand opposed to the plants which the husbandman depends upon for his livelihood, vermin hold toward the beasts and birds upon which the sportsman depends for his recreation. While they whose protection men endeavor to maintain during the season of procreation, and at times when scarcity of food prevails, decrease often to complete extinction, the vermin, whom the hand of man is always against, continue to increase and multiply, or at least hold their own. With them as with the weeds nature seems to deal with a kinder hand. She spares and nourishes them, while she destroys their betters. The snow crust, which walls the quail in a living tomb, makes a royal banqueting hall for the pestiferous field mice, where they feast and revel in plenty, secure from all their enemies, feathered or furred. It impounds the deer, but gives free range to the wolf and to his as pitiless two-legged brother, the crust hunter. The wet seasons that drown the callow woodcock and grouse work no harm to the ravenous brood of the hawk and owl, nor to the litter of fox, mink, or weasel. Wet or dry, hot or cold, the year fosters them throughout its varied round.