VIII. THE NOVEMBER SEED-CROP 
“"Tis all a myth that Autumn grieves 
For, list the wind among the sheaves; 
Far sweeter than the breath of May.” 
—Samuel M. Peck (Autumn's Mirth). 
November, in our latitude, is nature’s season of plenty. 
Her work of crop production is done. Living is easy for all 
her creatures. The improvident may have their choice of 
fruits, or may eat only of the seeds that are best liked and 
most easily gathered. The frugal and foresighted may 
gather winter stores. It was no mere arbitrary impulse of 
our Puritan pioneers that settled upon November as the 
season of special Thanksgiving. 
Nature’s prodigality of seed production is for the benefit of 
her animal population. She gives them the excess. They in 
their turn are very wasteful in their handling of the seed. 
They never eat all that they gather, but scatter and lose some 
of it in places favorable for growth next season. Thus they 
aid in distributing and in planting theseed. Thesleek and 
surfeited meadow mice scatter grains along their runways 
and never find them again, and these lost seeds are favorably 
situated for growth at the proper season. It is only a 
remnant of them that will escape the more careful search 
of the beasts when the hunger of the lean season is on, but so 
great is the excess of production, that this remnant is, in the 
nice balance of nature, sufficient to keep the species going. 
It is a long, lean season that follows on November in our 
latitude, and the seed-crop, though abundant, isnot sufficient 
to feed all the wild animal population. So nature takes 
various measures to eke it out. She puts to sleep in hiberna- 
tion the great majority of animals. ‘These include nearly all 
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