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import.int role in distributing nuts and thus extending the range of the 

 trees. Nuts are heavy fruits not aided by wind dispersal; they are 

 very likely to drop directly under the parent tree and find conditions 

 for survivril unfavorable from the first. However, if lent legs or wings 

 as they often are by the squirrels or jays they may reach a spot far 

 from the parent tree that is favorable for their growth. 



Habitual storers of food like the mice, the squirrels, the blue jay, 

 woodpeckers, and nuthatches in season work incessantly at their self- 

 appointed tasks, but never recover and consume more than a fraction of 

 the nuts they hide. 



To sum up : In the northeastern states there is only one type of 

 actual damage done to the nut crop, namely destruction of immature 

 English walnuts, and the nut-feeding birds and mammals, which al- 

 ways leave some for seed, distribute those in such a way as to win for 

 themselves the rank of chief disseminators of nut-bearing plants. On 

 the whole then they are to be regarded as friends of nut culture and 

 of forestry in general. 



