88 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [ill. 



the tree, whilst the less fortunate or side branches perish 

 and fall. The leaf surface of any tree or large plant is 

 always pushing outwards towards the periphery, which 

 is only another way of saying that the interior branches 

 die. I often find fruit-growers who refuse to prune 

 their trees because they believe it to be unnatural, while 

 at the same time their tree tops are full of dead limbs, 

 every one a monument to the stupidity of the owner! 



Now, the effect of this struggle for existence allows 

 of mathematical measurement. Each bud should pro- 

 duce a branch or a cluster of fruit. A seedling peach 

 tree may be two feet high the first year, producing thirty 

 leaves, and in every axil a bud. Each of these buds 

 should produce a branch, which should again produce 

 thirty buds. The third year, therefore, whilst the tree 

 is only six or eight feet high, it should have nine hun- 

 dred branches, and in the fourth year twenty -seven 

 thousand! Yet a peach tree twenty years old may not 

 have more than one thousand branches! That is, many 

 millions of possible branches have been suppressed or 

 have died. I once made an actual observation of such a 

 battle and counted the dead and wounded. A black 

 cherry tree came up near my door. The first year it 

 made a straight shoot nineteen inches high, which pro- 

 duced twenty -seven buds. It also sent out a branch 

 eight inches long which bore twelve buds. The little 

 tree had, therefore, enlisted thirty -nine soldiers for the 

 coming conflict. The second year twenty of these buds 

 did not grow. Nineteen of them made an effort, and 

 these produced three hundred and seventy buds. In 

 two years it made an effort, therefore, at four hundred 

 and nine branches, but at the close of the second year 

 there were only twenty -seven branches upon the tree. 



