0.0.6 The Great World's Farm 



they were turned out into the woods for about a week to 

 shift for themselves. During this time they laid about 

 two thousand eggs daily, a fact which seemed immensely 

 to interest the crows of the neighborhood. For whether 

 with a view to eating them, or simply from a love of being 

 busy, they devoted themselves to carrying the eggs away 

 and burying them in a field more than half a mile off on 

 the other side of a creek. A month or two later, when 

 the field was plowed, the eggs were turned up in hundreds, 

 and being still perfectly good, supplied the laborers with 

 many a meal. 



But now, supposing that the crows had buried acorns 

 instead of eggs, and that the field had been waste ground, 

 where plovv^ and harrow never came, might not a small 

 forest of oaks have sprung up? and may not many a plan- 

 tation of oaks, beeches, sycamores, and other trees have 

 been planted in a similar way? 



A certain pine forest in Minnesota, for example, on 

 being cut down, was at once succeeded by oaks; and a 

 similar thing is said to have occurred in North Carolina, 

 with nothing in either case to account for it. The oaks 

 seemed to have grown of themselves; but since oaks must 

 certainly spring from acorns, it seems at least possible, 

 and indeed probable, that crows may have been the 

 planters. 



When the crows assemble in their hundreds to hold a 

 ''powwow," or parliament, then is the time when they do 

 their sowing on a large scale; for true to their usual 

 habits, many, if not all, bring and drop something. The 

 place chosen for the assembly is always open, and more 

 or less bare, and afterwards the ground may be seen 

 strewn with walnuts, hickory nuts, acorns, sticks, and 



