68 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
seeds, but we have not learned their culture. We have been 
satisfied with the grains and pulse of our agricultural tradition. 
Wild rice is marketed locally at fancy prices; but it is still 
wild rice, gathered where nature produces it in the old way. 
There is no culture of it worthy of the name. 
The cereals are mainly the edible seeds of grasses (Grami- 
neae): the seeds of sedges (Cyperaceae), if edible, should 
perhaps be included; and there is one seed of very different 
botanical character, the buckwheat, a member of the joint- 
weed family (Polygonaceae), commonly rated a cereal. We 
can find wild seeds of all these groups growing about us, some 
of them of good size and quality, but most of them far too 
small to be of possible value to us. The lentils are all mem- 
bers of the pulse family (Leguminosae), and their more or 
less beanlike seeds grow in two-valved pods. A few sorts of 
these protein-rich seeds will be found hanging in autumn. So 
great is the diversity according to climate, situation, and 
locality, that it is not possible to indicate what sorts of seeds 
are to be expected. 
Besides the cereals and lentils there are other wild seeds, 
allied to those we cultivate, for minor uses: for their flavors, 
for the oils they contain, for their medicinal properties, etc. 
And there are many others that are of interest to us solely on 
account of the very special ways in which they contribute to 
the preservation of the species, by providing for their own 
dispersal. Some are armed with hooksor barbs that catchin 
the wool of animals (as indeed they do also in our own cloth- 
ing), and thus they steal a ride, which may end in some new 
and unoccupied locality. These grow at low elevations—not 
higher than the backs of the larger quadrupeds. Some light- 
weight seeds develop soaring hairs, which catch the wind and 
by it are carried about. Some of the larger dry seeds of trees 
develop parachutes by means of which they are able to glide 
to a considerable distance from the place in which they grow. 
