THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 69 



up its seeds in firmly closed cones, and holds 

 them from three to nine years, so that, let the 

 fire come when it may, it is ready to die and 

 ready to live again in a new generation. For 

 when the killing: fires have devoured the leaves 

 and thin resinous bark, many of the cones, only 

 scorched, open as soon as the smoke clears away ; 

 the hoarded store of seeds is sown broadcast on 

 the cleared ground, and a new growth imme- 

 diately springs up triumphant out of the ashes. 

 Therefore, this tree not only holds its ground, 

 but extends its conquests farther after every fire. 

 Thus the evenness and closeness of its growth are 

 accounted for. In one part of the forest that I 

 examined, the growth was about as close as a cane- 

 brake. The trees were from four to eight inches 

 in diameter, one hundred feet high, and one hun- 

 dred and seventy-five years old. The lower limbs 

 die young and drop off for want of light. Life 

 with these close-planted trees is a race for light, 

 more light, and so they push straight for the sky. 

 Mowing off ten feet from the top of the forest 

 would make it look like a crowded mass of tele- 

 graph-poles ; for only the sunny tops are leafy. A 

 sapling ten years old, growing in the sunshine, 

 has as many leaves as a crowded tree one or two 

 hundred years old. As fires are multiplied and the 

 mountains become drier, this wonderful lodge- 

 pole pine bids fair to obtain possession of nearly 

 all the forest ground in the West. 



