(pine 



in the full glare of the sun, the seeds of the lodge- 

 pole germinate, grow, and flourish. 



Wind is the chief agency which enables the 

 seeds to migrate. The seeds are light, and I know 

 of one instance where an isolated tree on a pla- 

 teau managed to scatter its seeds by the aid of 

 the wind over a circular area fifty acres in extent, 

 though a few acres is all that is reached by the 

 average tree. Sometimes the wind scatters the 

 seeds unevenly. If most of the seeds are released 

 in one day, and the wind this day prevails from 

 the same quarter, the seeds will take but one 

 course from the tree ; while changing winds may 

 scatter them quite evenly all around the tree. 



A camping party built a fire against a lone 

 lodge-pole. The tree was killed and suffered a 

 loss of its needles from the fire. Four years later, 

 a long green pennant, tattered at the end and 

 formed of lodge-pole seedlings, showed on the 

 mountain-side. This pennant began at the tree 

 and streamed out more than seven hundred feet. 

 Its width varied from ten to fifty feet. 



The action of a fire in a lodge-pole forest is va- 

 ried. If the forest be an old one, even with much 



191 



