One of the things that impresses me most it Nature is the terrific struggle that rages on every hand amongst living things to maintain their hold on life. Not only must they fight against physical conditions, but it would seem that they must carry on an eternal war against fellow living entities both of their own and other species, families and orders. This struggle goes on amongst plants just as much as it does amongst animals. Year by year I have watched it taking place in my garden, which has developed from a piece of rübble-strewn waste ground into something resembling a forest glade by reason of the remarkable growth of the shrubs and trees I planted. These, when first put in, all had plenty of room, but, with the passage of time and in response to our rich Shanghai soil and favourable climate, they have mostly grown out of all recognition, demanding ever more space, and crowding each other out of existence. The faster-growing plants have smothered the others, cutting them off from the light and air they must have in order to thrive. Many a slow-growing or mall shrub has perished in the struggle. By ruthlessly pruning the fast growers I have managed to preserve some of my favourites amongst the less vigorous varletes, but, even so, I have had to let many of the latter go. Ye it is astonishing how these feebler plants fight on against overwhelming odds, thrusting their shoots through gaps in the foliage of their stronger neighbours and securing just enough life-giving light to keep their attenuated stems and shrunken roots from withering away altogether. Some plants, such as certain creepers and the bamboos, spread so rapidly that, were it not for my restraining hand, they would soon be masters of the whole garden. The creepers would swarm up and all over the largest trees and strangle them, while: the bamboos, sending out their underground stems in every direction, from which the fast-growing roots arise, after growing several inches in a day, would, if allowed, soon turn the garden into a jungle. Even amongst the small plants growing low on the ground the same struggle for space, light, air and moisture is noticeable. The Wandering Jew, with its profuse foliage, competes with the Mother-of-Thousands, with its innumerable offshoots, and always ends by suffocating them. The bamboo-grass, imported from Mokanshan, spreads like wildfire, killing everything that it envelops. Were it not such a beautiful plant I would eradicate it altogether. The fronds of the hardier ferns form a canopy over the stonecrops and club-mosses and extinguish them. In very damp weather moulds and fungi attack the stems of the sturdiest bushes and cause them to droop and die. What is the meaning of this desperate struggle which occurs all through Nature? Is there any meaning? Perhaps it is better not to seek a meal ing, but to accept the facts of Nature as we find them. Ore thing is evident, and that is, that were it not for this inborn determination to go on living and to pass on the spark of life to offspring similarly endowed, life on this planet would soon flicker out. Hence the ruthless struggle, which seems so cruel, is an indispensable concomitant of existence. But it has its compensation in the sheer joy of living which goes hand in hand with the struggle and fight to live—a, DE c. S.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.