454 KINSHIP AND ADAPTATION 
down thousands of seeds. But after hunting seedlings 
within and around this grove for many years I find that 
scarcely one in many thousand seeds ever gets a chance to 
sprout. There is seldom any crowding of the seedlings. The 
nearest neighbors may be many feet or many yards apart, 
and the saplings are much fewer than the seedlings. Some 
advantageous position with reference to light or depth of 
soil would account fully for their survival without any refer- 
ence to small peculiarities in the plants themselves. More- 
over, at bearing-time the question as to which trees shall 
send seeds to such favorable spots seems to be decided not so 
much by any peculiarities of the trees themselves or their 
seeds as by the strength and direction of the wind at a given 
moment and the obstacles that may happen to stand in the 
way. It does not appear that fitness is decisive. There is 
some crowding. Indeed the grove itself might be called a 
crowd of pine trees. But this crowding simply shows how 
many plants can grow for many years close together by 
individual adaptation to one another. The signs of such 
mutual accommodation are much more apparent than any 
signs of competition. As applied to this grove the idea of an 
intense ‘“‘struggle for existence” among its components 
would seem to be quite fanciful. One might urge that a 
Darwinian need not suppose any new species to be arising 
under the conditions described. Very true; but our illustra- 
tion was not chosen to show how species arise. It was selected 
as fairly representing conditions to be met with on every 
hand—conditions essentially similar to those under which 
all evolutionists believe that new species have somehow 
originated. 
An extreme case such as might be afforded by desert con- 
ditions increases our difficulties. Desert plants are always 
few and far between. There always seems to be room for 
many more. Competitions depending upon a surplus of 
individuals would appear in general to be quite out of the 
question. To be sure, each individual may be supposed to 
have a hard time growing under such severe conditions; but 
the fact that it lives there shows that it can stand them, and 
it seems to be enabled to do so by means of extraordinarily 
