280 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



seeds of the ash and some other deciduous trees. Such 

 seeds, like the pine seed, are winged for distribution. 

 Although they will not float on the gentle breeze like thistle 

 or dandelion seeds, still in a strong wind they are carried 

 quite a distance, fifteen or twenty rods, possibly farther. 

 When the seeds fall to the ground they soon separate from 

 their wings. A heavy rain or the foot of some animal may 

 bury them, or falling leaves may cover them, and the plant- 

 ing is done. If they fall upon the surface of a lake, the 

 gentle breeze wafts them along over the surface like a fleet 

 of little boats to islands or distant shores ; should they fall 

 upon a stream, they float away with the current. Although 

 the seeds of many forest trees do not grow their own wings, 

 we find them as widely distributed as the seeds of the pine. 

 Nuts and acorns are furnished with transportation by the 

 wings or legs of animals that feed upon them. 



Notice the distribution of the wild cherry along the road- 

 sides. In the spring you see here and there on cherry 

 bushes or trees the webs of the tent caterpillar. They are 

 usually found upon the apple and wild cherry, and if you 

 search the woods and fields, along the walls between pastures 

 and on bushy hillsides, you may, perhaps, be surprised to 

 find caterpillar "tents" everywhere, and usually on some 

 species of wild cherry. The wild cherries are scattered all 

 through the woods, where the birds, feeding upon the fruit, 

 drop the stones as they fly. It is a rule of nature that the 

 destroyer of the fruit is also the distributer of the seed. 



The other day I noticed a young pine growing some ten 

 feet from the ground in the fork of a maple tree by the road- 

 side. Who planted it there? Years ago I watched the 

 squirrels in the great forests of the Pacific slope. They 

 worked in pairs. One squirrel, climbing the giant trees, 

 cut off and threw down the cones, doing this so rapidly that 

 two or three were sometimes in the air together on their way 

 down, the last having been detached before the first reached 

 the ground. The other squirrel, biding at the foot of the 

 tree, carried off the cones as they fell. No doubt some of 

 the cones were left on the ground where they fell ; but most 

 of them were carried to a distance and hidden away in the 

 earth-mould or in the squirrels' storeroom. High in the 



