Part 5 (2/2)

And such odors! These winds had come all the way from the sea, over beds of flowers in the mountain meadows of the Sierras; then across the plains and up the foot-hills and into the piny woods ”with all the varied incense gathered by the way”

[Illustration: THREE KINDS OF SEED THAT THE WIND SHAKES FREE

Here are three kinds of seed adapted for dispersal by the shaking action of the wind]

Though co, these trees--the one Mr Muir clih, and ”their lithe, brushy tops were rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy” In its greatest sweeps the top of Muir's tree described an arc of frorees, but he felt sure it wouldn't break, and so he proceeded to take in the great storm show

”Now my eye roved over the piny hills and dales as over fields of waving grain, and felt the light running in ripples across the valleys froe was stirred by the waves of air Oftentiht would break up suddenly into a kind of beaten foam and finally disappear on so shore”

This was his ireen sea of tossing waves But if we study trees as long and lovingly as Muir did, we can pick out the different members of the faestures, their style of grave and graceful dancing in the wind

[Illustration: TYPES OF FLYING MACHINE

Here is the type of flying e is the kind that carries the dandelion seeds]

[Illustration: THE DANDELION-SEED FLYING MACHINE

The dandelion on the left sho the seeds are kept in the ”hangar”

at night and on rainy days, shut up tight to prevent the ith rain or dew and so ar-pines as interpreting that storm to him They seemed to be roused by the wildest bursts of the wind”_Oh_, what a glorious day this is!”

This was the picture part of it--the glorious -picture sho listen to some of the loriously with the wild exuberance of light and motion The profound bass of the naked branches and boles boo like waterfalls, the quick, tense vibrations of the pine-needles, now rising to a shrill, whistling hiss, now falling to a silky roves in the dells, and the keen metallic click of leaf on leaf--all this was heard in easy analysis when the attention was calrand anthehest pitch I could distinctly hear the varying tones of individual trees--spruce, fir, pine, and oak--and even the infinitely gentle rustle of the withered grasses at an to fall and the sky to clear, Muir climbed down and made his way back ho toward the east I beheld the countless hosts of the forests hushed and tranquil, towering above one another on the slopes of the hills like a devout audience The setting sun filled theht, and seeive unto you'”

HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY

Did you know that the ash and maple seeds actually have screw propellers, like a shi+p, so that they can ride on the wind?

Pettigrew's great work, ”Design in Nature,” makes this very plain, both in word and picture

In ay does the wind help to _produce_ the seed of grasses as well as carry and plant them? (Any encyclopaedia or botany will tell you how plants are fertilized)

How could a teet a start? Wallace, in his ”World of Life,” says that on a full-grown oak or beech there iven a better chance of life

Speaking of ”wind ploughs,” what is the object of ploughing anyway?

The article on preparing the seed bed in ”The Country Life Reader”