“It’s warm here in this room, and the plant has hurried to put out buds before the root has struck deep enough. It would be unwise to let it come to flower now.”
“Doesn’t Nature know best how to do things?”
“Not always. Nature is very wasteful. Besides, I’ve robbed these plants of Nature’s care, taken them into artificial conditions; so I must stand in place of Nature to them.”
“Suppose the plant gets discouraged and won’t bloom at all?”
“It won’t do that; blooming is the law of its life.”
He was silent a moment before asking, “I wonder if that is true in—in other ways—that about blooming too soon?”
“Yes, true of all Nature. Fruit grown or gathered prematurely is always poor, tasteless; still more important, the seeds produce poorer stock.”
“I don’t quite understand. I thought young flowers were finest. Didn’t you say pansies wouldn’t have fine blooms the second or third year?”
“Yes. That is because naturally the pansy is an annual. Only in warm climates does it live through the winter; when it does, the second season is merely a prolonged old age.”
“How about animal life?”