196 THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURE GUIDE 



for outdoor excursions, for initiative, gives breadth 

 of view, and is a life-long resource within. The 

 movies will be improved, but even at their best 

 they can never do for a child what an outdoor in- 

 terest will enable him to do more beneficially for 

 himself. 



One day a guide was out with several children 

 under eight years of age. They became interested 

 in a double-topped spruce. They learned that the 

 original tree-top was broken off and that the two 

 topmost twigs then bent upward and raced for 

 leadership. They had run a dead heat, as it were, 

 and continued rival leaders. During the remain- 

 der of the day the children often spotted a double- 

 topped tree. The cones of trees were noticed, and 

 of course the cones of the balsam fir caused com- 

 ment because these stood erect upon the limbs in- 

 stead of hanging down from them. 



In a small area, where a forest fire had swept 

 fifteen years before, a few trees had survived. An 

 examination of two of these revealed old fire scars. 

 One of the scars indicated that the tree had been 

 injured by the fire of fifteen years before and by 

 another fire eighty-seven years previous. A few 

 young aspens and thousands of young lodgepole 

 seedlings were starting. Why the lodgepole pines 

 were growing here brought out a discussion con- 

 cerning the trees that commonly were the first to 

 appear in a cleared or burned-over area. Only a 

 few species of young trees thrive in the sunlight; 



