572 BRITTON: VEGETATION OF THE 
A large portion of this land has been improved, is now cultivated 
and produces fair agricultural crops. Some of the factories of 
Wallingford are built upon this land, as are also portions of the 
villages of North Haven and Montowese. Many acres, however, 
may be called waste land and are covered only with red cedars 
and Andropogon scoparius. The Hartford division of the New 
York, New Haven and Hartford railroad crosses this area longi- 
tudinally from North Haven to its northern extremity near 
Meriden, and the Air Line division of the same railroad crosses 
the southern end obliquely at Montowese. 
Over nearly the entire region we find here and there certain 
small tracts, resembling miniature deserts, where the conditions 
have not been favorable for plant growth and which are quite 
barren. Why should such small areas remain still practically 
uncovered by vegetation? The answer must be found in the un- 
favorable character of the soil, which will later be described briefly 
in this paper. In the opinion of the writer, a much greater por 
tion of the sand plains was formerly barren, and two facts support 
this opinion : (1) There are no evidences that the plains were ever 
covered with forest growth; no large trees remain and, if such 
had ever existed and were removed, there would be sprouts OF 
stumps to tell the story, for stumps do not decay rapidly in such 
a soil. (2) The areas are now being gradually covered through 
the agency of certain plants that are able to grow under the con- 
ditions that prevail upon these sand plains.* 
The present paper is an account of observations on the flora 
of these barren areas, and of the result of examinations of the 
structure of certain of these plants to ascertain if they show any 
special adaptations that enable them better to meet the conditions 
found in such situations, For the purpose of the investigation 
two barren areas were chosen because they were among the 
largest of these sterile tracts, and more accessible to the writer 
than were the other similar areas. One of these is an irregular 
shaped area of perhaps eighty or ninety acres situated a short 
distance north of the village of North Haven, and is the region 
that will be referred to as the North Haven tract. A smaller are? 
a . 2 oe LENE Y pe: ere 
* Since this was written, the writer has been assured that the barren areas 
formerly much larger and are being gradually covered by vegetation. 
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