as we
shall endeavor to show, upon the peculiar distribution of the species,
and sustain the conclusion already arrived at as to the question of
former extension. In the northern groups, as we have seen, there are
few young trees or saplings growing up around the old ones to perpetuate
the race, and inasmuch as those aged sequoias, so nearly childless,
are the only ones commonly known the species, to most observers, seems
doomed to speedy extinction, as being nothing more than an expiring
remnant, vanquished in the so-called struggle for life by pines and firs
that have driven it into its last strongholds in moist glens where the
climate is supposed to be exceptionally favorable. But the story told by
the majestic continuous forests of the south creates a very different
impression. No tree in the forest is more enduringly established in
concordance with both climate and soil. It grows heartily everywhere--on
moraines, rocky ledges, along watercourses, and in the deep, moist
alluvium of meadows with, as we have seen, a multitude of seedlings and
saplings crowding up around the aged, abundantly able to maintain the
forest in prime vigor. So that if all the trees of any section of the
main sequoia forest were ranged together according to age, a very
promising curve would be presented, all the way up from last year's
seedlings to giants, and with the young and middle-aged portion of the
curve many times longer than the old portion. Even as far north as the
Fresno, I counted 536 saplings and seedlings, growing promisingly upon
a landslip not exceeding two acres in area. This soil-bed was about
seven years old, and had been seeded almost simultaneously by pines,
firs, libocedrus, and sequoia, presenting a simple and instructive
illustration of the struggle for life among the rival species; and it
was interesting to note that the conditions thus far affecting them have
enabled the young sequoias to gain a marked advantage. Toward the south
where the sequoia becomes most exuberant and numerous, the rival trees
become less so; and where they mix with sequoias they grow up beneath
them like slender grasses among stalks of Indian corn. Upon a bed of
sandy floodsoil I counted ninety-four sequoias, from one to twelve feet
high, on a patch of ground once occupied by four large sugar pines which
lay crumbling beneath them--an instance of conditions which have enabled
sequoias to crowd out the pines. I also noted eighty-six vigorous
sa