260 The Plant World. 



a country always interesting and often unexpectedly wild and 

 picturesque. 



The conditions of plant life in the portions of England visited 

 are surprisingly varied. These are due, among other causes, 

 to the differences in latitude, to varied relations to the sea, to 

 topographical variations, which are really considerable, and to 

 the varied character of the soil. With these should be included 

 differences in rainfall and temperature, also relatively great. 

 What further environmental conditions there are, can not be 

 stated here exactly; certain of them will appear incidentally, 

 however, in the course of these notes. 



The country between Barnet, where the tour was begun, 

 and Durham is, for the most part, flat or gently rolling. It is 

 under a high degree of cultivation, and, in June, the small fields 

 are green from the young crops of barley and wheat. The road- 

 sides are bordered with hedges of white and rose haw, and haw 

 hedges also separate the fields. Between the hedgerows by the 

 roadside and the smooth road there is a narrow strip of grass 

 which is often carefully cut and exactly edged as in the city 

 parks; where less care is taken, which fortunately is perhaps 

 usually the case, the hedges are the hiding places of wild roses, 

 and many small plants, as violets, white daisies, cowslips, straw- 

 berries, yellow mustard, and yarrow, which are left to flower in 

 the grass. No native forest was seen in this portion of the jour- 

 ney, but trees are often to be found along the roads, or by the 

 sides of the fields, with the hedges, and one often sees woods of 

 a few acres extent which have been planted and left for game 

 preserves. These "plantings" are snugly protected by high 

 fences, and warning signs are a familiar sight throughout England. 

 This suggests the idea that hunting is here taken seriously. The 

 landlord lets his fields for farming purposers to one set of tenants, 

 and the same land to quite another class for hunting grounds. 

 In the autumn the hunt, with high-born ladies and gentlemen, 

 picturesquely attired, and fine horses, gay grooms and bellow- 

 ing hounds, make, as a countryman assured us, a brave sight. 

 But these riders break down hedges and ruin crops, if there 

 chance to be any on the course, without reimbursing the farm- 

 ers, so we are told, which fact did not strike our informant as 

 in any degree unjust. 



