250 The Great World's Farm 



them; for sprouted nuts, taken out of the case and 

 planted, have been found to be all dug up and eaten by 

 rats. 



With the exception of the sugar-maple, none of the 

 forest-trees or the evergreens seem to have children grow- 

 ing up round them in Indiana. Seeds of white pines, firs, 

 American poplars, etc., when they fall upon the scattered 

 leaves of the parent-tree, simply lie there and die; and 

 their almost only chance of life seems to be when they fall 

 upon some little bed of earth made by the hogs, which 

 root about among the leaves and turn up mold while they 

 are searching for worms. 



One would not suspect hogs of doing any useful work 

 of this sort; but these animals, which have been turned 

 loose in the woods, do seem to have planted many clusters 

 of young poplars, for the edge of the trees just corresponds 

 with the date when the pigs were first brought into the 

 settlement. 



A change deserving of notice has been wrought in 

 some parts of the Riverina, New South Wales, solely, as 

 it would seem, by the introduction of cattle. In the old 

 times there were not animals enough to eat the grass 

 down; and so when it became ripe and dry, it was easily 

 set alight by a chance spark from the fire of a native. 

 The natives were, indeed, suspected of firing it on pur- 

 pose to insure a fresh crop to tempt the kangaroos within 

 their reach. Any seeds of eucalyptus or other trees were 

 either killed in the conflagration or by exposure to the 

 weather, for they lay on the surface of the ground, with 

 no animal sufficiently heavy of foot to tread them in; and 

 it would seem that their only hope could be in chance 

 cracks. Trees were accordingly scarce in these parts; 



