Bright colours of fruits--Unripe fruits and their effects--An intemperate Fungus--Oranges--Prickly pear and the monkey--Strong seeds--Bill-of-fare of certain birds--A wood-pigeon and beans--Ants and seeds--Bats, rats, bears, and baboons--The rise in weight of a Big Gooseberry--Mr. Gideon and the Wealthy Apple--Crossing fruits--Breadfruit and banana--Dates--Figs-- Olives--Pineapples by the acre--Apples and pears--Home and Canadian orchards 240 CHAPTER XX WANDERING FRUITS AND SEEDS Ships and stowaway seeds--Tidal drift--Sheep, broom, migrating birds--Crows and acorns--Ice--Squirrels--Long flight of birds--Seeds in mud--Martynia and lions--The wanderings of Xanthium--Cocoanut and South Sea Islands--Sedges and floods--Lichens of Arctic and Antarctic--Manna of Bible--The Tumble weeds of America--Catapult and sling fruits--Cow parsnips--Parachutes, shuttlecocks, and kites--Cotton--The use of hairs and wings--Monkey's Dinner-bell--Sheep-killing grasses 254 CHAPTER XXI STORY OF THE CROPS Bloated and unhealthy plants--Oats of the Borderers, Norsemen, and Danes--Wheat as a wild plant--Barley--Rye--Where was the very first harvest?--Vine in the Caucasus--Indians sowing corn--Early weeds--Where did weeds live before cultivation?--Armies of weeds--Their cunning and ingenuity--Gardeners' feats--The Ideal Bean--Diseased pineapples--Raising beetroot and carrot--Story of the travels of Sugar-cane--Indian Cupid--Beetroot and Napoleon 269 CHAPTER XXII PLANTS AND ANTS Meaning of Plant Life--Captive and domesticated germs--Solomon's observations denied by Buffon but confirmed by recent writers--Ants as keepers and germinators of corn--Ant fields--Ants growing mushrooms--Leaf-cutting ants--Plants which are guarded by insects--The African bush--Ants boarded by Acacias and by Imbauba trees--Ants kept in China and Italy--Cockchafer _v._ ant--Scale insects--A fungus which catches worms 281 CHAPTER XXIII THE PERIL OF INSECTS The Phylloxera--French sport--Life history of the Phylloxera--Cockchafer grubs--Wireworm--The misunderstood crows--Dangerous sucklings of greenflies--"Sweat of heaven" and "Saliva of the stars"--A parasite of a parasite of a parasite--Buds--The apple-blossom weevil--Apple-sucker--The codlin moth and the ripening apple--The pear midge--A careless naturalist and his present of rare eggs--Leaf-miners--Birds without a stain upon their characters--Birds and man--Moats--Dust and mites--The homes of the mites--Buds, insect eggs, and parent birds flourishing together 290 CHAPTER XXIV RUBBER, HEMP AND OPIUM