Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1886 — Survival of the Fittest. [ARTICLE]

Survival of the Fittest.

“No, Parson,” said Farmer Thistlepod, resolutely shaking his head,“good and evil ain’t equally distributed in this world, not by a long cfialk. See, here I drop into the ground one g ain of good wheat. Now, straight away after that one wee little atom of good come the chinch bugs, cut worms, weevil bugs, army woims, wire worms, blight, rust, drought, mildew, freshets, late frosts, hard winters, short summers, grub worms, rain, heat, cold, aDd dry, and wet, prairie fires, the neighbors’ cattle, people from town, weeds—why, it’s a livin’ miracle that any good survives in the world at all, when we see what it has to struggle agin. But then,” added the old man, stopping to pluck up a cheery red poppy and hurl it over into the highway, “reckon if ’twasn’t so good as it is we wouldn’t take the interest in helpin’ it along an’ figlitin’ for its life as we do.” And with a shout that scared the very guinea hens into silence, he started the dog across the field to warn away a party of young people who were swarming over the fence to gather a few armfuls of wheat to make winter baskets.— Brooklun Eagle. _____ Truth requires plain words; she rejects all ambiguities and reserves.