I don't wonder you get out of patience with this old *' chestnut," of oaks coming up in pine forests. I have never seen a pine forest in a climate where oaks can be made to grow that did not have oaks mixed more or less with the pines. If the pine forests are in almost pure sand, or beyond the Northern limit of the oak, no oaks will be found after the pines are cut'away.

Darwin says the oaks are driving the pines to the sands, and, as he was a very close observer, a great traveller, and careful not to take statements from others unless they were well authenticated, it would seem that it is much the same in other countries as in this.

If Darwin had said, the fires are driving the pines to the sands, he would have still been right, for, as far as my observations, the pines will hold their own except where fires intervene; even when cut down they will soon reclothe the land.

I remember an old farmer in Vermont telling me in 1838 of how the fires had run into the Green Mountains many years before, and how a different kind or different kinds of timber had sprung up, and he contended - good old soul - that these trees had come up without seeds. I tried to convince him, but it did no good. Unreasonable as the statement was it set me to thinking, and as I have rambled in the woods every opportunity I have had since I was a very small boy, it was not trouble to me to examine these woods and those adjoining. Of course I found trees of the same kinds that had taken possession of these burnt down woods. InCalifornia they have the oak region and the pine region. The oaks grow on the foothills and the pines higher up the mountains. Now I remember distinctly, that in crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains and very high - so high that in the afternoon we walked over what seemed to be perpetual snow under the brow of the mountain, and we hurried so as to get over the summit to camp for the night.

When we reached the summit it was not quite sunset and the air being very chill we walked about half an hour before we stopped for the night. (There were two of us; our camping was lying down and sleeping in our blankets.) Much as I was hurried I could not help stopping to look at an old oak tree. It was at least a foot through, close to the ground; it might have been 15 or 20 feet long, for it ran almost horizontal, and at the furthest extremity from its base it was so near the ground that I looked over it, standing beside it. It was massed very closely with leaves and literally covered with acorns. I did not notice another oak tree anywhere near it. Now, if a fire has since run through that forest of course there would be oaks growing there now, unless the climate may be too severe since the protection of the pine forest is lacking. Of course there is nothing in this worth publishing.

[Just the material that is worth publishing. We read, a few years since, a paper in a scientific periodical, showing that young oaks and other trees will remain for years under the shade of a pine, making no growth, but putting out a leaf or two, so that in ten or twenty years they would be but a few inches high. Those who believe acorns or other seeds will lie in the ground good for centuries, would never notice these. They would think they were plantains or dandelions, if they had any thought at all. The Editor has seen these things in forests, and doubtless other close observers have. When the pine forest is cut down these little fellows take advantage of the situation to grow right on and crowd out everything else. Then we have a change of forest if the seedlings are there, and no change if they are not there. But people generally love to choose the most mysterious explanations of things - Ed. G. M].