The victory comes to those, who by virtue of inherited superior vigor 

 or owing to the chance of finding better soil, domineer the community, just 

 as in the human world, the modest are driven to the wall. 



But, finally, even these victors must give way, for, as Hercules, the 

 unconquerable, succumbed to the poison that penetrated to his bones, so 

 does the mighty giant of the forest fall a prey to the insidious work of rot 

 and fungus and insects and storms. When its heart is riddled and weak- 

 ened, first the dry branches crumble and gradually give opportunity for the 

 young aftergrowth of shade-enduring kinds, waiting patiently for light, to 

 strengthen; then break the large limbs and the dry top, and, having 

 weathered the onslaught of the storms for centuries and the guerillas of the 

 fungus tribe for decades, finally the giant falls, with its decaying substance 

 enriching the soil for future generations. Into the breach rush the young 

 epigones, each struggling to supplant their progenitor and to preserve the 

 forest. 



It is in consequence of these changes in light conditions that the altern- 

 ations of forest growth take place, oak following pine, or pine following 

 oak ; poplars, birches, cherries, apearing on the sunny burns, and spruce, 

 hickory, beech and maple creeping into the shade of these light-needing 

 species and, in time, supplanting them. 



While, in the Eastern forest, under natural conditions, the rotation of 

 power is accomplished in from 300 to 500 years, the old monarchs of the 

 Pacific, towering above all competitors, have held sway 2,000 or more years. 

 And, in this warfare, with changes in climatic and soil conditions going on 

 at the same time, it may well occur that a whole race is crowded out and 

 exterminated. The virgin forest, then, is the product of long struggles, 

 extending over centuries, nay, thousands of years. Some of the mightiest 

 representatives of old families, which, at one time of prehistoric date, were 

 powerful, still survive, but are gradually succumbing to their fate in our 

 era. 



The largest of our Eastern forest trees, reaching a height of 150 feet, 

 and diameters up to 12 feet, the most beautiful and one of the most useful 

 the Tulip tree (Lirodendron) is a survivor of an early era, once widely 

 distributed over the world, now confined to Eastern North America, doom- 

 ed to vanish soon from our woods owing to' man's improper partisanship. 

 Others, like the Torreyas and Cupressus, seem to have succumbed to a na- 

 tural decadence, if we may judge from their confined limits of distribution. 

 The colossal Sequoias too, remnants of an age when things generally were 

 of larger size than now, appear to be near the end of their reign ; while the 

 mighty Taxodium, the Bald Cypress, the Big Tree of the East, still seem 

 vigorous and prosperous, weird with the grey Tillandsia or Spanish moss, 

 being able to live with wet feet without harm to its constitution. 



So far we have considered the evolution of the forest only from the 

 geographical and botanical point of view, and the history of its struggle for 



