196 



NATURAL HISTORY OP THE FARM 



leaves and flower-stalks, this is not the season for moving 

 them — they are for fall planting. We will consider only 

 young stock, in condition for removal and ready for active 

 growth. We need not look where there has been much 

 mowing or close grazing, or where severe fires have run. 

 These exterminate all the tender green things. But in 

 almost any place where fairly natural conditions remain, we 

 may expect to find young plants of each species commingled 



with the old. Let us make the 

 old fruiting plants our guide in 

 finding the less conspicuous and 

 less easily recognizable younger 

 generation. Under and near by 

 the old flowering-dogwood tree, for 

 example, we may find a few little 

 dogwoods that have sprung up 

 from seeds. If there appear to 

 be none, let us look closely, for 



Fig. 78. Seedling ninebarks in the 1 1 11 /t*i_ 



lawn, a, the old shrub; b, the dogwoods come on slowly. I he 



little seedlings in the grass: c, an 1 r, ■ 1 



older seedling growing in the seeds often require several years 



shelter of the fence. , , 1 j_i ji* 



to germinate, and the seedlings 

 under favorable conditions may grow but a few inches a year, 

 But the puniest of the little shade-dwarfed seedlings that we 

 may find, will respond wonderfully if set out in a nursery row, 

 where they have plenty of room and light. They will soon 

 make fine trees. 



Figure 78 is a diagram of a ninebark growing at the edge 

 of a lawn. From its swollen pods hundreds of thousands of 

 seeds are shed every year. They are sown about over the 

 grass, or tossed more widely when the wind sways the 

 bushes. Sooner or later, most of them germinate and a few 

 succeed in striking root in the soil and in lifting their pretty 

 green leaves to the light. The mowing of the lawn clips their 

 tops; but many of these seedlings have leaves that are below 



