king new
fields are the hooks of the burdock, the unicorn plant, and the
bur-parsley which impress as carriers the sheep and cattle upon a
thousand hills. The Touch-me-not and the herb Robert adopt a different
plan, and convert their seed-cases into pistols for the firing of seeds
at as wide range as twenty feet or more. The maple, the ash, the
hornbeam, the elm and the birch have yet another method of escape from
the home acre. Their seeds are winged, and torn off in a gale are
frequently borne two hundred yards away. And stronger wings than these
are plied in the cherry tree's service. The birds bide the time when a
blush upon the fruit betrays its ripeness. Then the cherries are
greedily devoured, and their seed, preserved from digestion in their
stony cases are borne over hill, dale, and river to some islet or
brookside where a sprouting cherry plant will be free from the stifling
rivalries suffered by its parent. Yoked in harness with sheep, ox, and
bird as planter is yonder nimble squirrel. We need not begrudge him the
store of nuts he hides. He will forget some of them, he will be
prevented by fright or frost from nibbling yet more, and so without
intending it he will ensure for others and himself a sure succession of
acorns and butternuts.

Very singular are the seeds that have come to resemble beetles; among
these may be mentioned the seeds of the castor-oil plant and of the
_Iatropha_. The pod of the _Biserrula_ looks like a worm, and a worm
half-coiled might well have served as a model for the mimicry of the
_Scorpiurus vermiculata_. All these are much more likely to enlist the
services of birds than if their resemblances to insects were less
striking.

Nature elsewhere rich in hints to the gardener and the farmer is not
silent here. A lesson plainly taught in all this apparatus for the
dispersal of seeds is that the more various the planting the fuller the
harvest. Now that from the wheat fields comes a cry of disappearing
gains, it is time to heed the story told in the unbroken prairie that
diversity in sowing means wealth in reaping.

In a field of growing flax we can find--somewhat oftener than the farmer
likes--a curious tribe of plants, the dodders. Their stems are thin and
wiry, and their small white flowers, globular in shape, make the azure
blossoms of the flax all the lovelier by contrast. As their cousins the
morning glories are to this day, the dodders in their first estate were
true climbers.