CHAPTER IX. SOME REASONS FOR PLANT MIGRATION. 53. Plants are not charitable beings.--Man uses to his advantage a large number of plants, but there appears to be no evidence that the schemes for their dispersion were designed for anything except to benefit the plants themselves. The elegant foliage and beautiful flowers, the great diversity of attractive seeds and fruits, all point to plants as strictly selfish beings, if I may so use the term; and not to plants as works of charity, to be devoured by animals without any compensation. By fertilizing flowers, by distributing plants, and by other helpful acts, animals pay for at least a portion of the damage they do. By an almost infinite number of devices, we have seen that seeds and fruits flee from the parental spot on the wings of the wind, float on currents of ocean, lake, and river. They are shot by bursting pods and capsules in every direction. With hooks, barbs, and glands they cling to the covering of animals. Allured by brilliant colors, birds and other animals seek and devour the fruits of many plants, the seeds of which are preserved from harm by a solid armor; these seeds are then sown broadcast over the land, ready to start new colonies. Nuts are often carried by squirrels for long distances, and there securely buried, a few in a place. By a slow process, which, however, covers a considerable space, in a few years many plants send forth roots, rootstalks, stolons, and runners, and thus increase their possessions or find new homes. 54. Plants migrate to improve their condition.--The various devices by which plants are shifted from place to place are not merely to extend and multiply the species, and reach a fertile soil, but to enable them to flee from the great number of their own kind, and from their enemies among animals and parasitic plants. The adventurers among plants often meet with the best success, not because the seeds are larger, or stronger, or better, but because they find, for a time, more congenial surroundings. We must not overlook the fact, so well established, that one of the greatest points to be gained by plant migration is to enable different stocks of a species to be cross fertilized, and thereby improved in vigor and productiveness.