THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, MOST GRATEFULLY
TO MY FRIEND
JOHN E. PICKETT
EDITOR OF
"THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN"




FOREWORD


A wiggling, brainless, slimy atom began it. He and trillions
of his kind. He was the Coral Worm ("Anthozoa," if you prefer).

He and his tribe lived and died on the sea-bottom, successive
generations piling higher on the skeletons and lifework--or
the life-loafing, for they were lazy atoms--of those that went
before. At last the coral reef crawled upward until in
uncharted waters it was tall enough to smash a wooden
ship-keel.

Then, above the surface of the waves it nosed its way, grayish
white, whalebacked. From a hundred miles distant floated a
cigar-shaped mangrove-bud, bobbing vertically, through the
ocean, until it chanced to touch the new-risen coral reef.
The mangrove, alone of all trees, will sprout and grow in salt
water. The mangrove's trunk, alone of all trunks, is
impervious to the corrosive action of the sea.