In every instance like the above I have observed that the seedling
Sequoia is capable of growing on both drier and wetter soil than its
rivals, but requires more sunshine than they; the latter fact being
clearly shown wherever a Sugar Pine or fir is growing in close contact
with a Sequoia of about equal age and size, and equally exposed to the
sun; the branches of the latter in such cases are always less leafy.
Toward the south, however, where the Sequoia becomes _more_
exuberant and numerous, the rival trees become _less_ so; and where
they mix with Sequoias, they mostly grow up beneath them, like slender
grasses among stalks of Indian corn. Upon a bed of sandy flood-soil I
counted ninety-four Sequoias, from one to twelve feet high, on a patch,
of ground once occupied by four large Sugar Pines which lay crumbling
beneath them,--an instance of conditions which have enabled Sequoias to
crowd out the pines.
I also noted eighty-six vigorous saplings upon a piece of fresh ground
prepared for their reception by fire. Thus fire, the great destroyer of
Sequoia, also furnishes bare virgin ground, one of the conditions
essential for its growth from the seed.
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