The Beginning of Life 



of self preservation — of adaptation. The plants thus re- 

 moved from their environment, must change their habits of 

 living and adapt themselves to their new environments or 

 perish. By adaptation, they developed roots that secured 

 their food and water supply from the ground, and through 

 their leaves, oxygen from the air. As the forms of plant 

 life increased, the struggle for existence became more pro- 

 nounced. Each plant was struggling to receive its share of 

 food from the ground and to draw its oxygen from the air. 

 It was, indeed, a battle wherein the "survival of the fittest" 

 determined the outcome. Some of these plants extended 

 their body stems high In the air in order to drink in a little 

 more sunshine and thereby gain an advantage over their 

 competing neighbors. Some of the more determined and 

 aggressive plants, not to be robbed of their share of sun- 

 shine, and whose bodily structure would not support Itself 

 In reaching high altitudes — unsupported, turned bandits in 

 their habits, became creepers using the bodies of their 

 stronger neighbors to which they fastened the supporting 

 tendrils, climbed to the uttermost tops of their stronger 

 neighbors and there smothered and choked them to death. 

 There was then as now, a crowding, pulling, drinking, and 

 sucking of the food substance of the soil and the sunshine 

 from the air. In this struggle for food, water and sunshine, 

 thousands of forms of plant life were choked, starved and 

 smothered out but the stronger survived. 



During all the millions of years that this struggle was 

 taking place, there were many changes taking place in rela- 

 tion to the method of reproduction. Nature is striving for 



[-^77] 



