THE ACORN, THE ROOT AND THE SEEDLING OAK 9 
over land and sea; they leave their homes and settle in 
strange countries. When we set out we carry a great 
bother of luggage with us, but plants travel as light as the 
wind. They travel as seeds. When the mother plant 
bears light seeds such as the dandelion or the fir tree, 
the wind snatches up handfuls of it and scatters it far and 
wide. Every plant yields many, many more seeds than 
will ever grow. If one seed in ten thousand grows, 
Nature is satisfied. Inside the poppy are cuddled thirty- 
two thousand seeds. If all these seeds became flowers 
there would be poppies, poppies everywhere—enough to 
put us all to sleep! Sometimes seeds have wings, like 
the thistle and the milkweed. Have you never pulled a 
handful of ripe milkweed from the pod and blown it 
into the air to watch the seeds sail upward and away on 
their white silken wings ? Where the mother plant 
leans out over a stream the seeds will fall perhaps in the 
water and be whirled away; if the river is broad and 
deep the swift current will carry the seed even out to the 
ocean, and it will be washed up to grow on foreign shores. 
Of course, a seed has to be strong and hardy to endure 
a bath in salt water, to endure being battered by the wind 
and scorched dry by the sun, or to lie unprotected on 
frozen, wintry ground waiting to be planted. Some 
seeds can be left for dozens of years and will grow when 
covered with earth. The little seed is the hardiest part 
