994 



Rural School Leaflet. 



look up. You will be surprised to see how nearly the crowns of the 

 trees fill all the space overhead. The large trees have pushed up, strug- 

 gling to get ahead of each other and to spread their tops in the light, 



without which their leaves 

 cannot digest the food neces- 

 sary^ for further growth. The 

 lower branches have been 

 shaded off, and the typical 

 forest form of tree has been 

 developed, — long, clean^trunk, 

 or upward stretching great 

 branches, with narrow crown 

 lifted high in the air. How 

 different from the same kind 

 of tree grown in the field! 



Now we come to a little 

 opening in the overhead cover. 

 Se\'eral 3xars ago nature, or 

 man, took out of the forest 

 here one or more of the adult 

 generation and left a hole of 

 some square rods over which is 

 stretched the open sky. Look 

 about a little; here are the 

 stumps. There was no vacant 

 space overhead when these 

 trees were standing in full 

 vigor. Now the spot is thick with flourishing brush. It does not 

 look much like forest growth, but it is. 



These whips and bushes are struggling with one another for the light, 

 and, therefore, the place. The bushes spread out their tops and try to 

 choke the whips back, yet some are getting through. Once clear of the 

 shrubs, they will shoot up fast, for then they will be racing with each 

 other, a race for life. As their tops close together the laggards will be 

 cut off. The shade will deepen, the stems thin out through the death 

 of those less fit to survive, the bushes below will succumb until the 

 undergrowth is like that of the rest of the forest. A new generation 

 will have replaced the old. 



Yonder is a thicket of saplings. What stor}?- do they tell us? They 

 grow up by twos and threes, or perhaps more, from stumps which tell 

 of the axman's work — a forest of " sprouts " or coppice- Ten years ago 



Fig. 69. — White oak grown from sprouts. Note 

 leaning tree, crowded outward by its neighbor 



