302 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in the Sierras Pinus contorta and Finns tuberculata, are replacing tiie more valuable 

 species by the same process. 



In these cases also the worthless trees are the shortest lived, so we see that nature is 

 doing all she can to remedy the evil. Man only is reckless, and especially the American 

 man. The Mexican will cut large limbs off from his trees for fuel, but will spare the 

 tree. Even the poor Indian, when at starvation point, stripping the bark from the 

 heavy-wooded pines, for the mucilagenous matter being formed into sajjwood, will 

 never take a strip wider than one third the circumference of the tree, so that its growth 

 shall not be injured. 



Frequently we see articles in print, stating that oaks are springing up in destroyed 

 forests where oaks had never grown before. The writers are no doubt sincere, but they 

 are careless. The only pine forests where oaks are not intermixed, are either on land 

 so sandy that oaks can not be made to grow on them at all, or so ifar north that they 

 are beyond its northern limit. In the Green mountains and the New England forests, 

 in the pine forests of Pennsylvania, in the Adirondacks, in Wisconsin and Michigan, I 

 have found oaks mixed with the pines and spruces. In northwestern Minnesota, and in 

 northern Dakota, the oaks are near their northern limit, but even there the burr oak 

 drags on an existence among the jjines and white spruces. In the Black Hills in 

 Dakota, poor, forlorn, scrublSy oaks are scattered through the hills among the 

 heavy- wooded pines. In Colorado we find them as shrubs among the pines and Douglas 

 spruces. In New Mexico we find them scattered among the pinons. In Arizona you 

 will find them growing like hazel bushes among the heavy-wooded pines. On the 

 Sierra Nevadas the oak region crosses the pine region, and scattering oaks reach far up 

 into the mountains. Yet oaks will not flourish between the one hundredth meridian 

 and the eastern base of the Sierras, owing to the aridity of the climate. Recently we 

 found oaks scattered through among the redwoods on both sides of the Coast Range 

 mountains. Darwin has truly said: "The oaks are driving the pines to the sands." 



Wherever the oak is established, and we have seen that it is established wherever it 

 can endure the soil and climate, it will remain and keep on advancing. 



The oak produces comparatively few seeds. Where it produces a hundred seeds the 

 ash and maple will yield a thousand, the elm ten thousand, and many others a hundred 

 thousand. The acorn has no provision for locomotion like other tree seeds. Many 

 kinds have wings to float them upon the water and carry them in the air, the wings 

 placed in such a manner as to be carried by a rotary motion, reaching a wonderful 

 distance, even in a very light wind. Nearly every tree seed, except the acorn, has a 

 case to protect it while growing, either opening and casting the seeds oflf to a distance 

 when ripe, or falling with them to protect them until they begin to germinate. Even 

 the equally large seeds of other kinds are protected in some way. The hickory nut has 

 a hard shell, which shell itself is protected by a strong covering until ripe. The black 

 walnut has both a hard shell and a fleshy covering. The acorn is the only seed I can 

 think of which is left by nature to take care of itself. It matures without protection, 

 falls heavily and helplessly to the ground, to be eaten and trodden on by animals, yet 

 the few which escape, and those which are trodden under are well able to compete in 

 the race for life. 



While the elm and maple seeds are drying upon the surface, the hickories and 

 walnuts waiting to be cracked, the acorn is at work with its coat oiT. It drives its tap 

 root into the earth in spite of grass and brush and litter. No matter if it is shaded by 

 the forest trees so that the sun can not penetrate, it will manage to make a short stem 

 and a few leaves the first season, enough to keep life in the root, which will continue to 

 drill in deeper and deeper. 



When age or accident removes the tree which has overshadowed it, then it will assert 

 itself. Fires may run over the land, destroying almost everything else, the oak will be 

 killed to the ground, but it will throw up a new shoot the next spring, and when the 

 opportunity arrives it will make a vigorous growth, in proportion to the strength of the 

 root, and throw out strong side roots, and after that care no more for its tap root, which 

 has been its only support, than a frog cares for the tail of the tadpole after it has got 

 on its own legs. 



There is no mystery about the succession of forest growths. Nothing in nature is 

 more plain and simple. We can but admire her wisdom, economy, and justness, 

 compensating in another direction for any disadvantage a species may have to labor 

 under. 



Seeds with a hard shell, or with a pulpy or resinous covering retarding their germina- 

 tion, are often thus saved from becoming extinct. 



The red cedar. Juniper us Virginiana, reaches from Florida to and beyond Cape Cod, 

 among the hills of Tennessee, through the Middle states and New England, scattered 

 through the western states and territories long distances apart, creeping up the Platte 



