12 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



hold of, and it is then committed to the wind, expressly that it 

 may transport the seed and extend the range of the species ; 

 and this it does as elTectually as when seeds are sent by mail in 

 a different kind of sack from the patent office. There is a 

 patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose 

 managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as any 

 body at Washington can be, land their operations are infinitely 

 more extensive and regular. 



There is, then, no necessity for supposing that the pines have 

 sprung up from nothing, and I am aware that I am not at all 

 peculiar in asserting that they come from seeds, though the 

 mode of their propagation by nature has been but little attended 

 to. They are very extensively raised from the seed in Europe, 

 and are beginning to be here. 



When you cut down an oak wood, a pine wood will not at 

 once spring up there unless there are, or have been, quite re- 

 cently, seed-bearing pines near enough for the seeds to be blown 

 from them. But, adjacent to a forest of pines, if you prevent 

 other crops from growing there, you will surely have an exten- 

 sion of your pine forest, provided the soil is suitable. 



As for the heavy seeds and nuts which are not furnished with 

 wings, the notion is still a very common one that, when the 

 trees which bear these spring up where none of their kind were 

 noticed before, they have come from seeds or other principles 

 spontaneously generated there in an unusual manner, or which 

 have lain dormant in the soil for centuries, or perhaps been 

 called into activity by the heat of a burning. I do not believe 

 these assertions, and I will state some of the ways in which, 

 according to my observation, such forests are planted and raised. 



Every one of these seeds, too, will be found to be winged or 

 legged in another fashion. Surely, it is not wonderful that 

 cherry trees of all kinds are widely dispersed, since their fruit 

 is well known to be the favorite food of various birds. Many 

 kinds are called bird-cherries, and they appropriate many 

 more kinds, which are not so called. Eating cherries is a bird- 

 like employment, and unless we disperse the seeds occasionally, 

 as they do, I shall think that the birds have the best right to 

 them. See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order 

 that a bird may be com])clled to transport it — in the very midst 

 of a tempting pericarp, so that the creature that would devour 



