TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. ^48 



to point the attention of the reader to the relative 

 situation of each individual plant, with regard to 

 the tendency to self-preservation. With such a 

 fulness of life, and such a vigorous striving at de- 

 velopment, even so rich and fertile a soil as this 

 is not capable of furnishing the necessary nourish- 

 ment in sufficient abundance ; hence those gigantic 

 trees are in a constant struggle for their own pre- 

 servation, and impede each other's growth still 

 more than the trees in our forests. Even the 

 stems which are grown to a considerable height, 

 and require a large supply of nutriment, feel the 

 influence of their more powerful neighbours, are 

 suddenly arrested in their growth by being de- 

 prived of the requisite juices, and thus become in 

 a short time subject to the general powers of 

 nature which lead them to a rapid dissolution. 

 We thus see the noblest trees, after suffering an 

 atrophy of some months' duration, eaten away by 

 ants and other insects, seized with decay from the 

 root to the summit, till, to the terror of the solitary 

 inhabitants of the forest, they fall down with a 

 tremendous crash. In general, it is remarked by 

 the farmers, that stems which stand singly, among 

 several others of a different kind, are more easily 

 kept down by the latter. When at some future 

 period a regular system of forest cultivation, which 

 indeed has not yet been thought of in these thinly 

 peopled woods, shall be introduced, it will be 

 found necessary not so much to promote the 



