130 THE ROMANCE OF SEED-SOWING. 



flowers that come before each one of them ; but, as with the 

 flowers, so with down-tuft and 'key,' berry and fruit; they all 

 have their several missions to perform, in order to perpetuate the 

 very existence of their species, and to hold their own in the battle 

 of life. 



Acknowledging that while they last, they are, in a thousand 

 forms and ways, beautiful and useful, I wish to try to show the 

 definite uses of these "common things," and of some curious and 

 wonderful contrivances to be found in plant-life all around us. 

 To come to the subject-matter of this lengthy introduction, let us 

 look for awhile at the various methods by which, either through 

 external agency or intrinsic power, trees and plants manage to 

 disperse their seeds, and to secure for their offspring a suitable 

 home, and a fit and proper environment. 



The first question that naturally arises in many minds will 

 probably be, Why try to scatter or disperse them at all ? Why 

 not let them take their chance, and simply fall to the ground 

 immediately underneath the tree, shrub, or annual, as the case 

 may be, there to germinate and grow up into their parents' like- 

 ness ? 



This is quite easily answered. In the case of trees, if all 

 the seeds fell round about the trunk, they would stand a poor 

 chance ; for if they ever germinated at all, the young seedlings 

 would get very little sun, and a great deal too much over-shadow, 

 and would be further harmed by the 'drip, drip,' from the 

 branches. In the cases of both trees and plants, moreover, the 

 large quantity of young plants would choke one another in the 

 struggle for life ; indeed, this not seldom occurs with some of our 

 garden annuals, as we can easily prove for ourselves. Again, 

 many plants soon exhaust the earth of certain mineral materials, 

 and if their seedlings attempted to grow in the same soil, they 

 would fail, the parent plant having used up the chief portion 

 of such substances. 



A parallel to this is found in the fact that farmers 

 do not grow the same kind of plant for successive seasons in 

 the same field, but vary the sort from year to year, choosing 

 plants that draw different materials from the soil in consecutive 

 years. ' Rotation of crops ' we call it, but it is not our own 



