It is wonderful how far the seeds of berries are carried by birds. The
waxwings and cedar birds carry seeds of our tartarean honeysuckles,
purple barberries and many other kinds four miles distant, where we
see them spring up on the lake shore, where these birds fly in flocks
to feed on the juniper berries. It seems to be the same everywhere. I
found European mountain ash trees last summer in a forest in New
Hampshire; the seed must have been carried over two miles as the crow
flies.
While this alternation is going on in the East, and may have been
going on for thousands of years, the Rocky Mountain district is not so
fortunate. When a forest is burned down in that dry region, it is
doubtful if coniferous trees will ever grow again, except in some
localities specially favored. I have seen localities where short-lived
trees were dying out and no others taking their places. Such spots
will hereafter take their places above the timber line, which seems to
me to be a line governed by circumstances more than by altitude or
quality of soil.
There are a few exceptions where pines will succeed pines in a
burned-down forest. _Pinus Murrayana_ grows up near the timber line in
the Rocky Mountains. This tree has persistent cones which adhere to
the trees for many years. I have counted the cones of sixteen years on
one of these trees, and examined burned forests of this species, where
many of the cones had apparently been bedded in the earth as the trees
fell.
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