He published a book called “The Tree Doctor,” in which he made public the many wonderful things he had learned about trees. The information was invaluable and it is safe to say that millions of trees have been saved by those who have followed his instructions. His views have been accepted everywhere as authoritative, and it is said by many that John Davey has more practical knowledge about trees than any one else in the world. He established an institute for young men who wished to take up the study of trees and flowers. His two sons have been associated with him in that work for many years. And so it has come to pass that the lad who began to work hard at eight years of age, and who at twenty could not write his own name, and did not even know all the letters of the alphabet, has become a world figure by his sheer pluck and determination. CHAPTER XI THE PEASANT BOY WHO MADE HIS DREAMS COME TRUE Less than forty years ago a little Serbian boy--Ivan Mestrovic--was watching the sheep on the hillsides near his home in the village of Otavice in Serbia, about thirty-five miles from the Dalmatian coast. Ivan’s parents were peasants and, like all the humble folk of the countryside, lived very simply. There were few luxuries in that little thatched cottage, and while still a mere lad of eight or nine years of age, Ivan, like the other boys he knew, spent long hours at the foot of the soaring Dinaric Alps, tending the flocks and at night returning, often footsore and weary, to listen to the stirring tales of Serbia’s national heroes, as they were told to the assembled children around the fireside. The history of the Serbian people in many ways has been a sad one. Centuries ago they lost much of their independence when the Turks crushed them with a cruel onslaught which left them in an enfeebled condition. But no people in the world are prouder of their history than the Serbs, and Ivan listened eagerly as his father told of the mighty deeds of Kraljevic Marko, the national hero of Serbia, and other renowned men of the nation. Perhaps after Ivan went to bed each night he dreamed of the thrilling tales he had heard. One thing he certainly did: he dreamed of these things by day when out on the lonely mountain sides with no companions but the sheep. He had lots of time to think, for often he would be off almost at daybreak and only when night was falling did the lad turn his steps homeward. He knew little or nothing of the great world outside. Most of the old people of the district had lived all their lives without moving away more than a few miles. Many of them had never been as far as the Dalmatian coast although it was little more than thirty miles away. Ivan thought that perhaps he too, like the old men of the village, would live and die near his father’s thatched cottage.