Development of the Vegetation of New York State 163 
ally broken down seedling trees and particularly have cut 
white pine seedlings and even young saplings for decoration. 
But even on this arid land the forest is closing in in spite of 
hindrance. On an adjacent field, the site of an old dwelling 
and its surrounding, cleared patch have disappeared under 
a young forest cover where the young saplings are making 
their rapid growth-race for survival and many are already 
starved and falling out. This sort of thing is familiar 
enough to everyone but it may not have been generally ob- 
served that even in the most favored situations a mesophytic 
forest is not a direct and sudden development. The elabor- 
ation or differentiation of the environment by vegetation to 
the point where the complex forest society occupies the site, 
involves a period of history rather like the development of a 
single organism to its mature stage. It is not to be inferred 
here, however, that a field-weed stage or grass and pasture 
weed stage, shrub stage, etc., are regarded as necessarily pre- 
paring or building up the soil for the later coming trees. 
The fact in such case is, that the grass cover may delay and 
doubtless exercise a certain control in the species make-up of 
the young forest by making the establishment of seedlings 
difficult. But in such cases as those cited and generally on 
lands better suited to forest growth than for farming, the 
earlier stages leading up to the mature forest represent vege- 
tation of a certain xerophytic status, for until the forest 
crown closes in and the ground becomes shaded and kept 
moist by the organic debris, the amount of water given off 
from the foliage is large as compared with the quantity which 
the roots can absorb from the soil. See also, under culture 
status of vegetation (p. 181). 
CLIMAX VEGETATION. 
It is hoped that the discussion presented in these pages 
will lead to the conclusion that there has in the course of 
time been worked out a certain complex adjustment as be- 
tween plants and the New York type of environment such 
that we could say of it that it constitutes the normal or bal- 
