Chapter XVII 

 LANDSCAPES AND VEGETATION 



Man's handiwork — as, for example, in the maintenance of par- 

 ticular types of forest or in their clearance to form arable or grass 

 lands — often reveals the potentialities, or even directly demonstrates 

 the productive capacity, of particular areas. Thus the Hazel coppice 

 with Pedunculate Oak ' standards ' developed so commonly on 

 heavy soils in England is, when cleared, normally suitable for Wheat, 

 as is much of the mixed deciduous woodland of New England. 

 This is well known to local inhabitants who seek out such terrain. 

 On the other hand the acidic heathlands found in many areas on 

 both sides of the North Atlantic tend to be too poor for the growth 

 of other than the most meagre of crops, being generally best given over 

 to pasturage. These two examples also illustrate two of the main 

 divisions of landscape — namely, those which are largely forested and 

 those which are not. 



Outside of the polar, high-alpine, and desert regions, there are 

 few major land areas in the world that are not substantially covered 

 by plants, or where plants do not ' form the chief embellishment'. 

 Consequently the vegetation largely characterizes the landscape 

 locally, and, being made up of ditferent plants having different 

 requirements and ranges, affords a valuable field of study for in- 

 terpretmg landscapes and predicting the best uses to which various 

 areas may be put. 



Landscapes and Component Landforms 



In spite of the general importance of vegetation almost everywhere 

 in the world, the stage for its display, so to speak, is set by the local 

 conformation of the surface of the earth which exhibits various so- 

 called ' landforms ' . These last may be subdivided into constructional 

 and destructional categories. 



Constructional landforms of the first order are the continents and 

 ocean basins, and, of the second order, plains (of horizontal structure 

 and low relief), plateaux (of horizontal structure but high relief), 



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