190 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA 



are few young trees or saplings growing up around 

 the failing old ones to perpetuate the race, and in 

 as much as those aged Sequoias, so nearly child 

 less, are the only ones commonly known, the species, 

 to most observers, seems doomed to speedy extinc 

 tion, as being nothing more than an expiring rem 

 nant, vanquished in the so-called struggle for life 

 by pines and firs that have driven it into its last 

 strongholds in moist glens where climate is ex 

 ceptionally favorable. But the language of the ma 

 jestic continuous forests of the south creates a very 

 different impression. No tree of all the forest is 

 more enduringly established in concordance with 

 climate and soil. It grows heartily everywhere 

 on moraines, rocky ledges, along watercourses, and 

 in the deep, moist alluvium of meadows, with a mul 

 titude of seedlings and saplings crowding up around 

 the aged, seemingly abundantly able to maintain 

 the forest in prime vigor. For every old storm- 

 stricken tree, there is one or more in all the glory of 

 prime ; and for each of these many young trees and 

 crowds of exuberant saplings. So that if all the 

 trees of any section of the main Sequoia forest were 

 ranged together according to age, a very promising 

 curve would be presented, all the way up from last 

 year's seedlings to giants, and with the young and 

 middle-aged portion of the curve many times longer 

 than the old portion. Even as far north as the 

 Fresno, I counted 536 saplings and seedlings grow 

 ing promisingly upon a piece of rough avalanche 

 soil not exceeding two acres in area. This soil bed 

 is about seven years old, and has been seeded al 

 most simultaneously by pines, firs, Libocedrus, and 



