11th verse to whatever vegetable and animal life the earth was
specifically directed to "bring forth." It is our purpose to consider, in
this connection, not only the various facts noticed and theories suggested
by our ablest writers and thinkers on the subject of seed-distribution,
but to ascertain, as far as possible, to what extent their several facts
and theories harmonize with natural phenomena, and at the same time
determine what disposition should be made of them in the light of this new
genesis, herein for the first time disclosed.

Professor George P. Marsh, in his work on "Man and Nature," in which he
treats largely of forestry in Europe, says that "when a forest old enough
to have witnessed the mysteries of the Druids is felled, trees of other
species spring up in its place; and when they, in their turn, fall before
the axe, sometimes even as soon as they have spread their protecting shade
over the surface, the germs which their predecessors had shed, perhaps
centuries before, sprout up, and in due time, if not choked by other trees
belonging to a later stage in the order of natural succession, restore
again the original wood. In these cases, the seeds of the new crop may
have been brought by the wind, by birds, by quadrupeds, or by other
causes; but, in many instances, _this explanation is not probable_." It is
manifest that Professor Marsh uses the word "germs," in this connection,
in the sense of seeds only; for no seed-bearing trees "shed" any other
germs than the natural seeds they bear. And while he admits that, in many
instances, the generally accepted theory concerning the dissemination of
seeds is not a probable one, he still clings to the exploded notion that
vegetable physiology furnishes a record of "numerous instances where seeds
have grown after lying dormant for ages in the earth." He further says, in
the same connection, that "their vitality seems almost imperishable while
they remain in the situations in which nature deposits them;" although he
is reluctant to accept the accounts of "the growth of seeds which had lain