40 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [l. 



unlikenesses of plants, for plants which start like when 

 they germinate may be very unlike when they die. 

 Given time and constantly but slowly changing condi- 

 tions, and the vegetable creation is fashioned into the un- 

 likenesses which we now behold. With this conception, 

 let us read again Francis Parkman's picturesque descrip- 

 tion of the forests of Maine in his " Half- Century of 

 Conflict:" "For untold ages Maine had been one un- 

 broken forest, and it was so still. Only along the rocky 

 seaboard or on the lower waters of one or two great 

 rivers a few rough settlements had gnawed slight in- 

 dentations into this wilderness of woods, and a little 

 farther inland some dismal clearing around a blockhouse 

 or stockade let in the sunlight to a soil that had lain in 

 shadow time out of mind. This waste of savage vege- 

 tation survives, in some part, to this day, with the same 

 prodigality of vital force, the same struggle for existence 

 and mutual havoc that mark all organized beings, from 

 men to mushrooms. Young seedlings in millions spring 

 every sunnner from the black mold, rich with the decay 

 of those that had preceded* them, crowding, choking, 

 and killing each other, perishing by their very abun- 

 dance; all but a scattered few, stronger than the rest, or 

 more fortunate in position, which survive by ))lighting 

 those about them. They in turn, as they grow, inter- 

 lock their boughs, and repeat in a season or two the 

 same process of mutual suffocation. The forest is full 

 of lean saplings dead or dying with vainly stretching 

 towards the light. Not one infant tree in a thousand 

 lives to maturity; yet these survivors form an innumer- 

 able host, pressed together in struggling confusion, 

 squeezed out of symmetry and robbed of normal de- 

 velopment, as men are said to be in the level sameness 



