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  BIRDS AND ALL NATURE.

  ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY.

  VOL. VI.           OCTOBER, 1899.            No. 3




  [Illustration: FORESTS.
                 CHICAGO:
                 A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.]




  CONTENTS

                                                          Page
  FORESTS.                                                  97
  THE BRAVE OLD OAK.                                       102
  "CHEEPER," A SPARROW BABY.                               103
  THE HERMIT THRUSH.                                       104
  THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO.                         107
  OPTIMUS.                                                 109
  HOW THE EARTH WAS FORMED.                                110
  RETURNING HOME.                                          115
  THE PLANT PRODUCTS OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.            115
  HONEY BIRDS.                                             116
  FARM-YARD FOWLS.                                         119
  THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO RIVER IN ARIZONA.        120
  OIL WELLS.                                               122
  THE BADGE OF CRUELTY.                                    128
  FINISHED WOODS.                                          131
  THAT ROOSTER.                                            132
  BROOK TROUT.                                             137
  CUBA AND THE SPORTSMAN.                                  140
  NIAGARA FALLS.                                           143
  HOW THE WOODPECKER KNOWS.                                144




FORESTS.

JOHN M. COULTER, Ph.D.

_Head Professor of Botany, University of Chicago._

Forests have always been admired, and in ancient times they were often
considered sacred, the special dwelling-places of gods and various
strange beings. We can easily understand how forests thus affected
men. There is a solemnity about them, a quiet grandeur, which is very
impressive, and the rustling of their branches and leaves has that
mysterious sound which caused the ancients to people them with spirits.
We still recognize the feeling of awe that comes in the presence of
forests, although we have long since ceased to explain it by peopling
them with spirits.

Once forests covered all parts of the earth where plants could grow
well, and no country had greater forests than North America. When
America was discovered, there was a huge, unbroken forest from the
Atlantic west to the prairies. Now much of this has been cut away, and
we see only small patches of it. Men must use the forest, and still
they must save it, and they are now trying to find out how they may do
both.

Forests are sometimes almost entirely made up of one kind of tree,
and then they are called "pure forests." Pine and beech forests are
examples of this kind. More common with us, however, are the "mixed
forests," made up of many kinds of trees, and nowhere in the world are
there such mixed forests as in our Middle States, where beech, oak,
hickory, maple, elm, poplar, gum, walnut, sycamore, and many others
all grow together.

Probably the densest forests in the world are those in the Amazon
region of South America. So dense are they that hardly a ray of light
ever sifts through the dense foliage, and even at noon there is only a
dim twilight beneath the trees. The tallest forests are the Eucalyptus
forests of Australia, where the trees rise with slender trunks to
the height of four or five hundred feet. But the largest trees in
the world, when we consider both height and diameter, are the giant
"redwoods" (Sequoias) of the Pacific coast. All concede, however, that
the most extensive, the most varied, and the most beautiful forests of
the world are those of the Atlantic and Middle States.

Perhaps it is well to understand how a tree lives, that we may know
better what a forest means. The great roots spread through the soil,
sometimes not far from the surface, at other times penetrating deeply.
The young root tips are very sensitive to the presence of moisture,
and turn towards it, no matter in what direction it may carry them.
In penetrating the soil the sensitive root tips are turned in every
direction by various influences of this kind, and as a result, when
the root system becomes old, it looks like an inextricable tangle. All
this tangle, however, but represents the many paths that the root tips
followed in their search for the things which the soil contains.

Roots are doing two things for the tree: They anchor it firmly in the
soil, and also absorb material that is to help in the