VARIATION BY USE AND DISUSE. 
251 
8 inches long with 12 buds. In all it had 39 buds in 
the race for life. Each bud put forth its entire 
strength to get its share of food and light in order to 
fulfill its destiny and become a branch the next year. 
All but 19 of the buds failed to do that, and so they 
perished. The successful ones became branches, and 
put forth 370 buds. Only 8 of these succeeded in 
becoming branches the third year. Thus the strug¬ 
gle went on, and at the end of the fourth year the 
tree stood 8 feet high; but instead of having over 
3,000 branches, as would have been the case if all 
the buds could have won, it had only 297, and these 
were mostly weak spurs 3 to 4 inches long, not more 
than a score of which could long persist. This is no 
exaggerated illustration of the battle that is taking 
place in every tree-top. Every bud is really a complete 
individual organism, as much so as the seed is. It 
will grow by itself and reproduce its kind, as the seed 
does. May we not look upon the tree, then, as a 
colony of plants? Every bud in the colony must 
struggle for food, light, and room, just as men in our 
large cities must struggle for a place in life. 
It has been ascertained that in the forests of Den¬ 
mark the beech-tree is crowding out all other trees. 
The birch can not long live in the shade of the beech; 
hence the young trees die, and the older ones carry 
their crowns high up into the sunlight, but in the end 
they, too, succumb. 
The tree fossils of Denmark show that the region 
was once covered with aspens, then with the fir, the 
birch, the oak in succession, and lastly with the beech. 
