Thus fire, the great destroyer of the sequoia, also furnishes the bare ground required for its growth from the seed.

Fresh ground is, however, furnished in sufficient quantities for the renewal of the forests without the aid of fire--by the fall of old trees.

The soil is thus upturned and mellowed, and many trees are planted for every one that falls.
It is constantly asserted in a vague way that the Sierra was vastly wetter than now, and that the increasing drought will of itself extinguish the sequoia, leaving its ground to other trees supposed capable of flourishing in a drier climate.

But that the sequoia can and does grow on as dry ground as any of its present rivals is manifest in a thousand places.

"Why, then," it will be asked, "are sequoias always found only in well-watered places ?" Simply because a growth of sequoias creates those streams.