So that if all the trees of any section of the main Sequoia forest were ranged together according to age, a very promising curve would be presented, all the way up from last year's seedlings to giants, and with the young and middle-aged portion of the curve many times longer than the old portion.

Even as far north as the Fresno, I counted 536 saplings and seedlings growing promisingly upon a piece of rough avalanche soil not exceeding two acres in area.

This soil bed is about seven years old, and has been seeded almost simultaneously by pines, firs, Libocedrus, and Sequoia, presenting a simple and instructive illustration of the struggle for life among the rival species; and it was interesting to note that the conditions thus far affecting them have enabled the young Sequoias to gain a marked advantage.
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.