68 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 



seeds, but we have not learned their culture. We have been 

 satisfied with the grains and pulse of our agricultural tradition. 

 Wild rice is marketed locally at fancy prices ; but it is still 

 wild rice, gathered where nature produces it in the old way. 

 There is no culture of it worthy of the name. 



The cereals are mainly the edible seeds of grasses (Grami- 

 neae): the seeds of sedges (Cyperaceae), if edible, should 

 perhaps be included; and there is one seed of very different 

 botanical character, the buckwheat, a member of the joint- 

 weed family (Polygonaceae) , commonly rated a cereal. We 

 can find wild seeds of all these groups growing about us, some 

 of them of good size and quality, but most of them far too 

 small to be of possible value to us. The lentils are all mem- 

 bers of the pulse family (Leguminosae), and their more or 

 less beanlike seeds grow in two-valved pods. A few sorts of 

 these protein-rich seeds will be found hanging in autumn. So 

 great is the diversity according to climate, situation, and 

 locality, that it is not possible to indicate what sorts of seeds 

 are to be expected. 



Besides the cereals and lentils there are other wild seeds, 

 allied to those we cultivate, for minor uses : for their flavors, 

 for the oils they contain, for their medicinal properties, etc. 

 And there are many others that are of interest to us solely on 

 account of the very special ways in which they contribute to 

 the preservation of the species, by providing for their own 

 dispersal. Some are armed with hooks or barbs that catch in 

 the wool of animals (as indeed they do also in our own cloth- 

 ing), and thus they steal a ride, which may end in some new 

 and unoccupied locality. These grow at low elevations not 

 higher than the backs of the larger quadrupeds. Some light- 

 weight seeds develop soaring hairs, which catch the wind and 

 by it are carried about. Some of the larger dry seeds of trees 

 develop parachutes by means of which they are able to glide 

 to a considerable distance from the place in which they grow. 



