23 



hickories are loo heavy to be carried by the wind, but their 

 weight and shape are such that if they strike a limb in fall- 

 ing, they will bounce a considerable distance and roll along 

 the ground. The birds and squirrels, although they destroy 

 many seeds, also aid in scattering them. The design in Na- 

 ture seems to be to get the seeds scattered away from the 

 parent tree. The thoroughness with which this design is 

 carried out is remarkable. In the fall of 1910 the tulip- tree 

 carpels were counted on 7 plots in Clarke county. These 

 plots were some 60 feet from a tulip- tree: but when an aver- 

 age was struck, it was found that the carpels ran 2,062,783 

 to the acre; and since each carpel contains 2 seeds, the seeds 

 had been scattered at the rate of 4, 125, 566 to the acre. And 

 even at a distance of 600 feet from a tree, they ran between 

 100,000 and 200,000 to the acre. 



118. The thoroughness with which seeds are scattered 

 is further illustrated by the dense stands of pine and other 

 trees that came up in abandoned fields during and after the 

 Civil War. 



119. Here at the South the forest will nearly always 

 maintain itself and come again when cut down, if given a 

 chance. It is only necessary to keep the fires from burning 

 up the seeds and killing the seedlings. The problem of re- 

 production by seed resolves itself into the problem of pro- 

 tection from fire. 



120. It may happen, however, that natural seeding is 

 deficient on small areas or that the owner wants a particular 

 kind of tree. In such cases sowing or planting must be re- 

 sorted to. 



121. When artificial reproduction must be used, it is 

 better to sow the longleaf and Cuban pines, walnut, hickory. 



