In course of time, however, the leaves and branches of the spruces become so thick that hardly a sunbeam can get through and you have a forest where noontime looks like twilight; a forest of deep shade and silence with its thick carpet of brown needles, and where all the shrubs and grasses and flowers have disappeared, except in the open spaces. It was in such a forest and in one of these sunny glades, no doubt, that the knight the little girl tells of in Tennyson: "... while he past the dim lit woods Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower That shook beneath them as the thistle shakes When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed." HOW NATURE RESTORES ABANDONED FARMS So it is that new lands pass from barren rock to forest, and deep rich soil, and so it is that worn-out soils, the result of reckless farming are finally restored. Hardly any soil is too poor for some kind of a weed. These weeds springing up, die and make soil that better kinds of weeds can use. Later come a few woody plants. In the course of fifteen or twenty years the soil is deep enough to support trees; and in fifty years there is a young forest. At the end of a century fine timber can be cut, the land cleared, and the old place may be as good as new. But it's a long time to wait! It's a much better plan to take care of the land in the first place. HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY One of the strangest things about Mr. Lichen, as you will see by looking up the subject in any botany or encyclopædia, is that he is really _two_ people--two different plants that have grown into partnership; and that one of the partners supplies water for the firm while the other furnishes the food. The part of "him" that supplies the food is green, or blue-green, and that is why it is able to do this. This idea that Mr. Lichen is really two people was one of those that was "received with a storm of opposition," but certain lichenologists actually took two different kinds of plants, put them together and _made_ a lichen themselves, as you will see when you look the matter up. As to just who among these two kinds of plants shall go into partnership--that usually depends on chance and the winds; although in the case of some lichens, the parents determine upon these partnerships, just as they often do in human relations.