PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 231 



still untenable, because groves do start up away from streams, and 

 away from any connection with other groves, and in places where 

 there are no stool grubs for a beginning. And so are immense 

 tracts immediately covered with a growth of oak where nothing 

 but pines grew before. Still we do not say that the growth is 

 spontaneous; but if it is not, the whole is involved in myster3^ 



Mr. Samuel Armstrong, Pleasant Ridge, Kansas, writes: "There 

 must be a seed to start the individual, or buds, eyes, &c." Acorns, 

 hickory and hazel nuts, &c., are stored in the ground by the prairie 

 squirrel, gopher, &c., for winter use, many of which are left and 

 grow. Previous to settlement, annual fires swept the prairies, 

 destro3'ing the sunmier's growth, leaving the root to sprout and 

 grow, and be destroyed each year in the same manner. An exami- 

 nation of what is called stool grubs, will satisfy any member of 

 your club that this is the case, and accounts for what Bayard Taylor 

 called spontaneous growth of forests. 



Dr. J. V. C. Smith gave the club the benefit of his ol^servations 

 all over New England, of the springing up of one kind of timber 

 where another had been cut away. As to the origin of prairies 

 that is a mystery. Unlike the bogs of Ireland, they do not give 

 evidence of having once been timbered. It is there a common 

 business to probe the bogs for buried trees, and large logs unlike 

 the present growth of Ireland are obtained. Notwithstanding the 

 unaccountaljle growth of trees where nothing of the kind had 

 previously grown, they may all come from long buried seeds. 

 An artesian well Vv'as bored near London a few years since, and the 

 next spring it was observed that some plants were growing in the 

 dirt taken out. They proved to be red raspberries, yet none pre- 

 viously grew in the vicinity. I have lately observed that mammoth 

 bones, an ostrich egg and large trees have been found at the bottom 

 of a deep well in Troy, N. Y. 



Dr. Suodgrass. — There is a very great difficulty in accounting 

 for the growth of trees on the prairie, if vre must refer their 

 origin to buried seeds. They certainly do not always spring up 

 from visible roots. If they came from seeds, the question is cer- 

 tainly very pertinent, how came they there ? 



iSIr. John G. Bergen said that he was an utter disbeliever in the 

 spontaneous growth of anything, and he did not believe anything 

 has been created anew since the close of the six days of Creation. 



Professor Tillman, thought we had better wait a little before 

 we declare spontaneous production impossible. The Academy of 



