Nature and Culture 53 



flooded and covers the young plants with water till 

 frost is past. Cultivated cranberries are protected 

 by placing a dam or dike so as to imitate nature. 

 The deciduous or hard woods protect the pines 

 from fire by covering their resinous, fallen foliage 

 with water-retaining leaves. The friendship be- 

 tween animals and trees and plants of all kinds is 

 well known. But for the squirrels and other 

 rodents there could be no forests of hickory, wal- 

 nut, beech, and chestnut, and but for these trees 

 there could be no climbing rodents. The trees 

 furnish warm, sheltered homes for the squirrels, in 

 their hollow limbs, and the squirrels carry off their 

 nuts and plant them nicely. It is not necessary to 

 mention that bees and other winged honey-seekers 

 are as essential to the lives of plants and trees as 

 the latter are to the insects. The arrangements 

 made for the prosperity of the birds and animals 

 are equally marked. If the hibernating animals 

 were compelled to eat in winter they would starve 

 to death, but they lay by enough carbon in fat to 

 last them over. They are not torpid, only sleepy. 

 The bear will waken up enough to close a chink if 

 there be too much air, or to open one if there be 

 not enough. When they wake in the spring they 

 find a breakfast of cranberries and wintergreen 

 berries ready, which are as fresh and fine when the 

 blanket of snow is withdrawn in the spring as they 

 were when it covered them in November. Country 

 boys know how it is with apples hidden in the long 



