NATURE'S OFFERING FOR SPRING PLANTING 197 



the level of the mower, and such live on and renew each 

 season their ill-fated attempts to rise in the world. The grass 

 is full of them — little stubby fellows, each with only two or 

 three small leaves that are put out early as if to take advan- 

 tage of the leafless condition of the boughs overhead. But 

 even such little unpromising stubs, if replanted in a fa\-orable 

 place, will make long leafy shoots the first season, and tall 

 blossoming shrubs the second season. And if one will look 

 about the borders of the lawn, he may find ready for planting 

 some ninebarks of a larger growth that have escaped the 

 mowing-machine. So one may find wild seedlings of many 

 other sorts, such as june-berry and arrowwood and witch- 

 hazel and of all the forest trees. 



Trees whose seeds employ special agencies of transporta- 

 tion may spring up in a new place. Thus seedlings of plants 

 whose fruits are eaten by birds are found about the open 

 places where the birds perch; and those from seeds that are 

 carried by water may congregate along shores and beaches. 

 On sand-bars in stream or lake, one often sees thousands of 

 little cottonwoods, willows, maples or sycamores, lined up 

 along the shore as in a single extended nursery-row. 



It is a rough-and-timable world into which wildwood 

 seedlings enter. When one thinks how small and tender they 

 are at the first, and how both earth and air are filled with 

 competitors and enemies, one wonders that any of them sur- 

 vive. Above them are great trees and lusty, smothering 

 vines and bushes, all struggling to monopolize the light. 

 Round about them are wild animals that trample and browze 

 and burrow, and spread destruction. Drouth and flood and 

 frost are constantly recurring perils while the seedlings are 

 little and have but a tenuous hold upon the soil. Even the 

 overturn of a single dead leaf, if it falls flat upon them and 

 shuts out the light, may extinguish the lives of dozens of 

 them. 



