NEEDHAM] PASTURE PLANTS 



There is one tree that regularly invades our neglected 

 pastures. It is the hawthorn. The cattle browse on it, but 

 they leave a remnant of new growth every year So its 

 increase is very slow until it gets beyond their reach : slow 

 but sure. All the while its dense cone of stubs is shaped 

 smoothly as m a lathe. But once emancipated from their 

 browsmg, it suddenly expands upward into the normal 

 torm of the reading hawthorn tree. 



Study 6. Pasture Plants 



Any old pasture will do for this: the more neglected the 

 more mterestmg its population is likely to be. The equip- 

 ment needed is merely something to dig with. Let all the 

 work be done individually. 



The program of work will consist in digging up one by one, 

 hrst the forage plants andthen the weeds, andexamining them 

 root and branch. Give special study to the forage plants- 

 the grasses and the clovers. Dig them up and pull them up 

 Fmd their predetermined breaking points. Observe their 

 mode of spreading through the soil. Trample them, espec- 

 ially with the heels of your shoes. Observe their preparedness 

 for the rooting of dismembered parts. Observe in the weeds 

 also their various ways of preventing being pulled up or eaten 

 up and trampled out of existence. Also stake out a square 

 yard of typical pasture and take a census of its plant popula- 

 tion. ^ ^ 



The record of this study will consist in: 

 I. Annotated lists of: 



(a) Forage plants. 



(b) Weeds (further classified if desired), with indica- 



tions, of size, duration (whether annual, bien- 

 nial, or perennial) mode of seed dispersal 

 (whether by wind or water or carried by ani- 

 mals on their feet or in their wool) . Vegetative 



255 



