44 OUTLINES OF FORESTRY. 



most of these germs will be called into active 

 growth, and various forms of plant life will begin 

 their existence. 



Suppose this particular section be a region 

 where, for several months of the year, no rain 

 falls, and whose soil, as is generally the case, 

 rapidly becomes dry. During the dry season all 

 forms of plant life will die from want of proper 

 nourishment 



On the reappearance of the wet season, only 

 those forms of plant life will appear that have 

 been able, during the brief time of the wet season, 

 to reach their full maturity and produce their fruit 

 or seeds, and so supply the germs necessary for a 

 new growth. Such forms as trees, which, as is 

 well known, require many years to mature their 

 seed or fruit, will necessarily be unable to continue 

 to grow naturally in such a region of country. 



Of course, it might easily happen that during 

 the first wet season all the germs might not have 

 been called into active life by the combined influ- 

 ence of the light and heat, so that on the next wet 

 season such forms might again spring up naturally. 



But their continued existence, under these cir- 

 cumstances, would be impossible from the absence 

 of the new germs. 



