38 THOREA U. 



throw some light on the fact, that when hereabouts a 

 dense pine wood is cut down, oaks and other hard 

 woods may at once take its place. I have got only to 

 show that the acorns and nuts, provided they are 

 grown in the neighborhood, are regularly planted in 

 such woods ; for I assert that if an oak-tree has not 

 grown within ten miles, and man has not carried 

 acorns thither, then an oak wood will not spring up 

 at once, when a pine wood is cut down. 



Apparently, there were only pines there before. 

 They are cut off, and after a year or two you see oaks 

 and other hard woods springing up there, with scarcely 

 a pine amid them, and the wonder commonly is, how 

 the seed could have lain in the ground so long with 

 out decaying. But the truth is, that it has not lain in 

 the ground so long, but is regularly planted each year 

 by various quadrupeds and birds. 



In this neighborhood, where oaks and pines are 

 about equally dispersed, if you look through the thick 

 est pine wood, even the seemingly unmixed pitch-pine 

 ones, you will commonly detect many little .oaks, 

 birches, and other hard woods, sprung from seeds car 

 ried into the thicket by squirrels and other animals, 

 and also blown thither, but which are overshadowed 

 and choked by the pines. The denser the evergreen 

 wood, the more likely it is to be well planted with 

 these seeds, because the planters incline to resort 

 with their forage to the closest covert. They also 

 carry it into birch and other woods. This planting 

 is carried on annually, and the oldest seedlings an 

 nually die ; but when the pines are cleared off, the 

 oaks, having got just the start they want, and now 

 secured favorable conditions, immediately spring up 

 to trees. 



