Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill DISTRIBUTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS fTIHE geographical distribution of – trees has been referred to occasionally in the preceding chapters. This distribution, gradually accomplished during the progress of ages, has not been accidental; on the contrary, it has been due to natural causes, and arises out of the special needs and adaptations of each species. The geology of a region, which determines in many respects the character of the physical forces of both the earth and the air, is no small factor in the developmentof the forest. The character of the climate, the nature of the soil, the degree of moisture in the soil and in the atmosphere, the amount and intensity of the sunlight ? in short, the various elements and natural forces that constitute the environment of a tree ? are the all-important conditions of its life. On these it depends, and according to its own peculiar nature and its special needs, selects its natural home. Yet the manner in which this selection is accomplished, though simple in theory, is complicated by many circumstances. Frost, fire, insects, and floods, by destroying the trees or their seeds, may retard the progress of the species. The wind may be unfavorable. The seeds hang upon the trees ready and ripe for germination, but a breeze comes along and carries them to a place where the conditions are ill adapted to their peculiar nature. The following year the wind is propitious and the little trees soon start into life. But presently the seeds of another tree, whose growth is by nature faster, are conveyed to the same spot, and the intruders outstrip the others in rapidity of growth and spread a canopy of foliage that screens the smaller trees from the life-giving sun and dooms them to destruction. Thus only a few of the numberless seeds that are…
