normal" target="_blank" title="a.变态的，反常的">abnormal development of wool at the expense of the hair. Garden roses
frequently exhibit stamens in which the transmutation to petals may be

observed in various stages of accomplishment, and analogously the
fleeces of tame sheep occasionallycontain a few wild hairs that are

undergoing transmutation to wool. Even wild wool presents here and
there a fiber that appears to be in a state of change. In the course

of my examinations of the wild fleeces mentioned above, three fibers
were found that were wool at one end and hair at the other. This,

however, does not necessarily imply imperfection, or any process of
change similar to that caused by human culture. Water lilies contain

parts variously developed into stamens at one end, petals at the
other, as the constant and normal condition. These half wool, half

hair fibers may therefore subserve some fixed requirementessential to
the perfection of the whole, or they may simply be the fine boundary-lines

where and exact balance between the wool and the hair is
attained.

I have been offering samples of mountain wool to my friends, demanding
in return that the fineness of wildness be fairly recognized and

confessed, but the returns are deplorably tame. The first question
asked, is, "Now truly, wild sheep, wild sheep, have you any wool?"

while they peer curiously down among the hairs through lenses and
spectacles. "Yes, wild sheep, you HAVE wool; but Mary's lamb had

more. In the name of use, how many wild sheep, think you, would be
required to furnish wool sufficient for a pair of socks?" I endeavor

to point out the irrelevancy of the latter question, arguing that wild
wool was not made for man but for sheep, and that, however deficient

as clothing for other animals, it is just the thing for the brave
mountain-dweller that wears it. Plain, however, as all this appears,

the quantity question rises again and again in all its commonplace
tameness. For in my experience it seems well-nigh impossible to

obtain a hearing on behalf of Nature from any other standpoint than
that of human use. Domestic flocks yield more flannel per sheep than

the wild, therefore it is claimed that culture has improves upon
wildness; and so it has as far as flannel is concerned, but all to the

contrary as far as a sheep's dress is concerned. If every wild sheep
inhabiting the Sierra were to put on tame wool, probably only a few

would survive the dangers of a single season. With their fine limbs
muffled and buried beneath a tangle of hairless wool, they would

become short-winded, and fall an easy prey to the strong mountain
wolves. In descending precipices they would be thrown out of balance

and killed, by their taggy wool catching upon sharp points of rocks.
Disease would also be brought on by the dirt which always finds a

lodgment in tame wool, and by the draggled and water-soaked condition
into which it falls during stormy weather.

No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so
insuperable an obstacle in the way of a right understanding of the

relations which culture sustains to wildness as that which regards the
world as made especially for the uses of man. Every animal, plant,

and crystal controverts it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught
from century to century as something ever new and precious, and in the

resulting darkness the enormousconceit is allowed to go unchallenged.
I have never yet happened upon a trace of evidence that seemed to show

that any one animal was ever made for another as much as it was made
for itself. Not that Nature manifests any such thing as selfish

isolation. In the making of every animal the presence of every other
animal has been recognized. Indeed, every atom in creation may be

said to be acquainted with and married to every other, but with
universal union there is a division sufficient in degree for the

purposes of the most intenseindividuality; no matter, therefore, what
may be the note which any creature forms in the song of existence, it

is made first for itself, then more and more remotely for all the
world and worlds.

Were it not for the exercise of individualizing cares on the part of
Nature, the universe would be felted together like a fleece of tame

wool. But we are governed more than we know, and most when we are
wildest. Plants, animals, and stars are all kept in place, bridled

along appointed ways, WITH one another, and THROUGH THE MIDST of one
another--killing and being killed, eating and being eaten, in

harmonious proportions and quantities. And it is right that we should
thus reciprocally make use of one another, rob, cook, and consume, to

the utmost of our healthy abilities and desires. Stars attract one
another as they are able, and harmony results. Wild lambs eat as many

wild flowers as they can find or desire, and men and wolves eat the
lambs to just the same extent.

This consumption of one another in its various modifications is a kind
of culture varying with the degree of directness with which it is

carried out, but we should be careful not to ascribe to such culture
any improving qualities upon those on whom it is brought to bear. The

water-ousel plucks moss from the riverbank to build its nest, but is
does not improve the moss by plucking it. We pluck feathers from

birds, and less directly wool from wild sheep, for the manufacture of
clothing and cradle-nests, without improving the wool for the sheep,

or the feathers for the bird that wore them. When a hawk pounces upon
a linnet and proceeds to pull out its feathers, preparatory to making

a meal, the hawk may be said to be cultivating the linnet, and he
certainly does effect an improvement as far as hawk-food is concerned;

but what of the songster? He ceases to be a linnet as soon as he is
snatched from the woodland choir; and when, hawklike, we snatch the

wild sheep from its native rock, and, instead of eating and wearing it
at once, carry it home, and breed the hair out of its wool and the

bones out of its body, it ceases to be a sheep.
These breeding and plucking processes are similarly improving as

regards the secondary uses aimed at; and, although the one requires
but a few minutes for its accomplishment, the other many years or

centuries, they are essentially alike. We eat wild oysters alive with
great directness, waiting for no cultivation, and leaving scarce a

second of distance between the shell and the lip; but we take wild
sheep home and subject them to the many extended processes of

husbandry, and finish by boiling them in a pot--a process which
completes all sheep improvements as far as man is concerned. It will

be seen, therefore, that wild wool and tame wool--wild sheep and tame
sheep--are terms not properlycomparable, nor are they in any correct

sense to be considered as bearing any antagonism toward each other;
they are different things. Planned and accomplished for wholly

different purposes.
Illustrative examples bearing upon this interesting subject may be

multiplied indefinitely, for they abound everywhere in the plant and
animal kingdoms whereverculture has reached. Recurring for a moment

to apples. The beauty and completeness of a wild apple tree living
its own life in the woods is heartily acknowledged by all those who

have been so happy as to form its acquaintance. The fine wild
piquancy of its fruit is unrivaled, but in the great question of

quantity as human food wild apples are found wanting. Man, therefore,
takes the tree from the woods, manures and prunes and grafts, plans

and guesses, adds a little of this and that, selects and rejects,
until apples of every conceivable size and softness are produced, like

nut galls in response to the irritating punctures of insects. Orchard
apples are to me the most eloquent words that culture has ever spoken,

but they reflect no imperfection upon Nature's spicy crab. Every
cultivated apple is a crab, not improved, BUT COOKED, variously

softened and swelled out in the process, mellowed, sweetened, spiced,
and rendered pulpy and foodful, but as utterly unfit for the uses of

nature as a meadowlark killed and plucked and roasted. Give to Nature
every cultured apple--codling, pippin, russet--and every sheep so

laboriously compounded--muffled Southdowns, hairy Cotswolds, wrinkled
Merinos--and she would throw the one to her caterpillars, the other to

her wolves.
It is now some thirty-six hundred years since Jacob kissed his mother

and set out across the plains of Padan-aram to begin his experiments
upon the flocks of his uncle, Laban; and, notwithstanding the high

degree of excellence he attained as a wool-grower, and the innumerable
painstaking efforts subsequently made by individuals and associations

in all kinds of pastures and climates, we still seem to be as far from
definite and satisfactory results as we ever were. In one breed the

wool is apt to wither and crinkle like hay on a sun-beaten hillside.
In another, it is lodged and matted together like the lush tangled