. The country home. nly as we appre-hend the unity of all life and the interdependenceof all living things. Animal sympathy not only ministers to our suc-cessful management of a country home, but to themanagement of ourselves. It broadens our workto a larger number of individualities. Man withhis gun and a brute-force soul creates only discord;and woman, wearing the wings of her allies, com-pels the birds to hide in the woods. With suchpeople the cow will grow shy, and the horse will de-generate into an unwilling slave. On the otherhand, what can be more wonderful than a countryfolkhold where
. The country home. nly as we appre-hend the unity of all life and the interdependenceof all living things. Animal sympathy not only ministers to our suc-cessful management of a country home, but to themanagement of ourselves. It broadens our workto a larger number of individualities. Man withhis gun and a brute-force soul creates only discord;and woman, wearing the wings of her allies, com-pels the birds to hide in the woods. With suchpeople the cow will grow shy, and the horse will de-generate into an unwilling slave. On the otherhand, what can be more wonderful than a countryfolkhold where the horse draws the load of himwho feeds him; where the cow gives milk and addsto his bank account; where the dog guards his prop-erty and the birds devour his enemies. The interdependence in country life was not or-iginated by man, although he has readjusted the re-lations of creatures in every direction. When ahawk has harried a robins nest, I have seen birdsof half a dozen species join to chase the marauder [284]. thirteen] securing OUR ALLIES through the skies. It is not uncommon to findstrong friendships growing up among our domesticanimals. A Morgan mare in my stables became sodeeply interested in a Leicester sheep that shewould share her hay and provender with evidentpleasure. Billy would jump into an adjacent man-ger, and with common sense take no more than hishalf. Each one would pull a mouthful from thehay, and then draw back to give the other a is altogether misleading to talk of the struggle forexistence as a principle covering all that is goingon throughout animate nature. The spirit of mu-tual aid is quite as general as the struggle forexistence. Our highest moral life is reached in that altruismwhich makes our responsibility broad enough tosecure the happiness of inferior animals. Thisduty widens into religion, when we recognize thefact that we are children of God only as we aredivinely good and cooperators with the cooperation gets to be a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectgardening, bookyear19
