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the cottonvTOod, until the last flower olooms in June, and keed are on the wing. 

 Or mayhe you don't have those trees in your woods? What trees do you have in 

 your neighlDorhood? I'll venture to say there are a lot of you who have been 

 enjoying trips through the woods for years, #10 don't really know the names of 

 all the comiEon kinds of trees. Test yourself on this. 



And while you are getting acquainted with the different trees, you vdll 

 prohahly notice that certain trees prefer certain localities. As you know, 

 you find the willow by the stream, the yellow or tulip poplar in the valley, 

 the red oak on hi^er ground. One kind of tree needs a lot of moisture while 

 another mil grow in a drier situation. 



As you have probably noticed certain trees "hobnob" together because 

 they have similar needs in the way of soil, and moisture, and light and the 

 like. You soon learn to group your trees as belonging to certain types. There 

 are certain trees you find associated together on the ridges. Other groups 

 you notice on the slopes. Others you find hobnobbing on bottom-land. Others 

 seem to prefer the swamps. 



What is your favorite woods? Is it the coniferous forest type? If so, 

 what 3d.nd of cone-bearing trees do you find in it? Or maybe it is the pure 

 hardwood type. Or maybe a mixed hardwood and conifer type. Did you ever stop 

 to figare why that woods is the kind it is? 



And did you ever try to figure how some of the trees in the woods got 

 where they are? You loiow forests have been traveling about long before the 

 famous Bimam wood came to Dunsinane. Some trees travel by wind. That is, 

 the seed are scattered ly the wind. And you have probably noticed a good many 

 of those ingenious contrivances with which some of the seed are equipped for 

 getting about. 



Some trees travel by animal. For instance, squirrels play an important 

 part in spreading the seed of certain trees. Hickories, walnuts, butternuts, 

 oaks, honeylocust, persimiions, and beeches a,re among the trees spread by ani- 

 mals. Birds also carry such tree seed as red cedar and cherry from pla.ce to 

 place. Wl-^ile such trees as cypress, tupelo gam, Cottonwood, willow?, maples, 

 and 8, number of others are sprea.d by water. Sometimes when you see a certain 

 kind of tree growing along a stream or a fences row it is pretty easy to figure 

 how it got there, 



li/hen you go into the cool shade of the woods, note the forest floor 

 too. Uote the undergrowth of young trees and shrubs and ferns and moss, and 

 the litter of fallen leaves. Take your jackknife or a stick and dig right 

 down under that cover into the mold of many years of fallen leaves. There you 

 will find the answer to Villon's question "lalhere are the snows of yesteryear?" 



When rain falls or snow melts under the shadow of the forest it sinks 

 into the spongy earth. The forest has soaked up the rain and melted snow like 

 a sponge. Find a spring, and you vail see where the stored water is seeping 

 out to feed the streams. The rainfall and snowfall that has been held ba.ck 

 in the hidden reservoir of the forest has been transformed into a steady sup- 

 ply of water for the pa.sture, and the fann, and the mill, and the city. 



