It should be remembered that trees and other vegetation have been on earth much longer than man. Man did not put in his appearance until immediately before the seventh “day” of the creative “week,” or nearly 6,000 years ago. However, “fruit trees yielding fruit according to their kinds” were created in the third creative epoch.​—Gen. 1:9-13.

Since each of the creative “days” or periods was evidently seven thousand years long, the whole creative “week” takes in 49,000 years. If that period is likened to a twelve-hour clock, then trees and other vegetation appeared between about three-thirty and five-fifteen. And man? Much later​—sometime after ten o’clock! Yes, trees on earth for between twenty-seven thousand and thirty-four thousand years far outdate man’s nearly six-thousand-year tenure.

[Chart on page 83]

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7,000 YEARS

14,000 YEARS

Day Three Trees Created

21,000 YEARS

28,000 YEARS

35,000 YEARS

Day Six Man Created

42,000 YEARS

49,000 YEARS