70 THE LAWS OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY 



which separate the more powerfully developed shoots and 

 branches from each other. 



The struggle for superiority then commences with the 

 second year's growth. It is at this time that all the branches 

 make the same start in life. At the close of the second year, 

 the upper buds developed from the axillae of the upper leaves, 

 have produced shoots, the lower only leaf-clusters ; the for- 

 mer have therefore got considerably ahead of the latter, du- 

 ring the same period of time. An in equality has been gene- 

 rated, which increases more and more every year. The third 

 year, the terminal bud of the lower shoots unfolds again as 

 a leaf-cluster; but the upper shoots become mother shoots, 

 developing from the buds, at their sides and summits, other 

 shoots like themselves. It is thus they continue progressing 

 from year to year, until they ultimately become those power- 

 ful branches which form, as it were, the prop or scaffolding 

 of the crown or spreading top, and no inconsiderable part 

 of the entire tree itself. 



The lower buds, on the contrary, developed from the 

 axillae of the lower leaves, make no headway, but continue 

 in the same fix, year after year, pining in poverty and in- 

 activity. There is no difficulty in finding any quantity of 

 such miserable starveling shoots on the branches of the 

 Beech, the Horse-Chestnut, the Apple, and other trees. 

 The current of sap is drawn away from them by the upper 

 and more powerful branches, and there is not a particle of 

 chance left for them except in the excision or death of the 

 upper branches. 



We have seen that the tree, during the first year of its life, 

 has only a poor chance of progress, on account of the few 

 leaves which it has at work in the air, and that, when it has 

 arrived at the stage of development prefigured by one of its 

 branches, it possesses a much greater amount of vitally act- 

 ive leaf-surface, and consequently its growth becomes more 

 rapid, and its chances of arriving at maturity multiplied a 

 thousandfold. ISTow, the same relative condition of things 

 exists between these pitiful twigs and powerful branches, 

 with reference to their respective means of obtaining food, 

 as existed between the tree and nature during the first year 



