starvation for all creatures that feed on wild fruit 

 and berries, while the seasons of 1909 and 1919 were 

 years of unusual abundance. 



The scarcity of wild fruit in 1910 was due to an 

 unseasonably early spring followed by a severe frost 

 011 April 28th and 29th, which killed .young foliage, 

 flowers and fruit already set. And this unfavorable 

 spring was followed by a summer excessively dry. In 

 1909 and 1919 on the other hand, the weather was 

 extremely favorable to the products of nature's wild 

 gardens. 



It is not so easy to account for the seed years and 

 seedless years of the evergreens, but they also show 

 lean years and fat years. The season of 1913 was a 

 great seed year. Many white pines, spruces and bal- 

 sams produced a wagon load of cones to the tree, 

 containing from 100,000 to 300,000 seeds. So heavily 

 loaded with cones were many of these conifers that 

 their tops and branches snapped under the excessive 

 weight. 



The seeds are disseminated according to the habit 

 of each species, either in fall or spring. I doubt that 

 more than one out of 1,000 seeds ever sprouts, while 

 probably not more than one seed out of 1,000.000 

 ever grows into a mature tree. Still it is by this hit- 

 and-miss method that nature has planted the great 

 wild forests of North America, extending originally 

 from the Atlantic to the Plains, in the Rockies from 

 Canada to Mexico, and on the Pacific from California 

 to Alaska. 



Compared with the central hardwood forests, the 

 northern forests are made up of only a few species. 



28 



