158 IN THE ACADIAN LAND. 



a microscope of fairly good power, we shall 

 see that this dust is altogether made up of 

 regular-shaped bodies with little tails to them. 

 Under very high magnifying instruments and 

 in skilful hands these little bodies are found 

 to be a naked kind of seeds with no embryos, 

 called spores, and the tail is really a wing ; and 

 a common puff-ball as large as a small apple 

 contains not less than ten millions of these 

 seeds, and every one of them would grow if it 

 had a favorable opportunity. The fact that 

 there are so many indicates the difficulties of 

 getting a footing in the world. The living or- 

 ganism under ground, the mycelium, pushes this 

 little globe outside and stuffs it with millions 

 of seed spores, all winged for the air, fills it 

 with gases till it bursts away an opening for 

 them to escape, cuts it off from its rootage, 

 that the winds may sport with it and thus the 

 seeds be sown far away from the grounds al- 

 ready occupied by its kind. The human mind 

 cannot conceive or in any way adequately com- 

 prehend the energy and intelligent action in 

 that little ball, that within a few days brought 

 forth so many millions of spores, so minute 

 that the naked eye cannot see them, only as 

 dust or smoke, and yet so made, that once 

 lodged where soil, and moisture, and heat, are 



