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1886,] Causes of Forest Rotation. 525 
now large enough to be safe from every enemy except man. If 
he were out of the way for 150 years about all the present 
forest trees will have lived out their time, and these young sugar 
maples would be almost the only trees of the forest in the area 
where a rain happened to fall with the seed. In the other thrée- 
quarters of the county that state of things would not exist, for 
there only the lucky seed that fell where a hog had rooted or a 
bull had trodden has made a tree, and this luck was as favorable 
to other seeds as to the sugar maple. These maple seeds send 
rootlets right down through the coating of leaves into the ground, 
and I have seen, over an area of many acres at a time, a maple 
Sprout for every four inches square, or nine to the square foot, 
none seeming to have missed sprouting. In replanting the ground 
where the present forest has been cut away, the sugar maple 
makes the least show of all the forest trees. As an infant it 
seems to thrive best in the shade of older trees. 
How the oak can take the place of pine where there are no 
oaks in the vicinity to bear acorns, I am not sure, but it is easier 
and more rational to believe that there is some natural agency for 
transporting the seed of the apparently spontaneous new tree, 
than to believe it to be really spontaneous, whether we understand 
the transporting agency or not. 
One of the most industrious and persistent seed-transporting 
agencies I know of is that ubiquitous, energetic, rollicking, med- 
dlesome busybody, the crow. Did you ever take a young crow 
and raise it as a pet? Please do so once and you will have more 
information about crows than I could give you in an entire num- 
ber of the Naturatist, They become very tame, and after they 
are able to fly it seems to be the delight and work of their lives ta 
Pick up and carry from place to place any and every article which 
'S Not too heavy for them. After a pet crow has had a little 
Practice he is as expert at tricks of legerdemain as a showman. 
He will steal a spool of thread, a thimble, a pair of scissors, a 
Paper of pins, or what not? right before your eyes, and as he 
flies away will tuck it so adroitly up under his tail feathers that __ 
yon Can't see it. He makes a deceptive grab as he starts to fly, __ 
¥ faking a few steps'as if to give himself a little momentum to 
his flight, and one of these steps he will plant square on ~ 
ape article he intends to steal, when his claws close round it and ae 
Of he goes. Perchance he will alight only a few yards distant 
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