Rural School Leaflet. 



995 



the fanner cut his cordwood here, and cut clean. But the trees did not 

 die. They were pruned down to the very roots, yet next spring the 

 great root systems put forth new buds at the root collar, or the edge of 

 the bark, and went to work again. Tiny trees sprung from seed 

 were scattered here and there in the clearing, and entered the race; but 

 their opportunity was small against the sprouts, with the root power 

 of decades behind them. Now the sprouts are racing and fighting with 

 each other. Brothers from the same stump struggle together; some are 

 clear ahead— dominant, the forester calls them; some in the thick of 

 the fight — intermediate; others still are already hopelessly beaten, over- 

 topped, and pressing ever more feebly towards the ever-lessening direct 

 light. Their name is suited to them; they are the suppressed. 



If they are of a tolerant, or shade enduring species, they may never- 

 theless hold their secondary place, meagerly living for the day when 

 favoring luck may smite down 

 the dominant crown, and let F^ T 

 them through to the sun. 

 If they are of intolerant 

 species they will soon be dead 

 trunks. 



Turn back, now, to the 

 high woods again. Why this 

 leaning, lopsided tree? Only 

 as it bends and twists can it 

 escape a crowding neighbor, 

 and reach towards the light 

 that comes from one side, 

 where an opening is yet 

 left. 



Next month we shall see 

 how the forester takes a hand 

 in this fight. Nature will serve 

 him only in her own way. 

 If he would make the forest 

 work to his ends, he must 



master and use its laws of Fio. jo.— Where the fight grows thick. Chestnut 

 life. oak sprouts about an old stump 



