Four seeds in a row ...

Posted by Smokey Stover on March 10, 2006

In Reply to: Four seeds in a row ... posted by Smokey Stover on March 06, 2006

: : Four seeds in a row, one for the rook,one for the crow, one will wiher and one will grow. Where does this originate?

: One seed is taken by a rook, which is a species of crow; another is eaten by a crow of another sort; of the remaining two one will die of natural causes; and one will germinate and grow. Well, that's pretty often true, so for every plant we want we should plant (at least) four seeds. The saying must have started with provident and observant farmers who knew how to rhyme. Or who knew that adages were easier to remember if they rhymed. SS

You asked "where" this originated. The closest we can come, I think, is England excluding the north of England, since rooks were called crows in the north. The rook is a large crow with shaggy legs and a bill with white markings at its base. It didn't eat seeds so much as young seedlings. SS