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Dot 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 

 planting 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 fur- 

 nished with transportation by the wings or legs of animals that 

 feed upon them. 



Notice the distribution of the wild cherry along the roadsides. 

 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, aud 

 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 roadside. 

 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 trees the 

 busy, garrulous jays pottered about among the branches. Here 

 on the Atlantic coast squirrels and jays, though of different 

 species, have for ages buried their food in the same way. 



In the autumn of 1897 the mast crop was light in some sections 

 of eastern Massachusetts, but here and there an oak tree was 

 found which bore a good crop. Such trees were soon discovered 

 by the jays aud squirrels, several of which might be seen gathering 

 the acorns from each tree. The ground squirrels work in pairs, 



