PLANTS CHANGE THE SCENERY 



Down below plants are every year growing over and 

 covering up or "happing up'"" with green these bare fragments 

 and splinters. A considerable amount falls down every year, 

 so that the ground is always being raised up below the 

 precipice. At the brow or edge above the precipice, there is 

 also always a loss of rock and stone every year. 



So that every year the bare rock exposed becomes smaller 

 and smaller, until eventually a steep, green, grass-covered 

 slope covers over the entire site of that precipice. 



Moreover that is not by any means all that plants do in the 

 way of changing the scenery of the country. Look at the out- 

 lines of the hills in any part of Great Britain except in the 

 broken, jagged, rocky mountain ranges of Scotland and 

 Wales (also Cumberland, Westmorland, parts of Derby- 

 shire and Dartmoor tors). Everywhere there are smooth, 

 flowing, gently undulating rises and falls. No sharp, abrupt 

 descents break these graceful sweeping curves. If you com- 

 pare the scenery of a canon in the rainless deserts of Western 

 America, the contrast is very striking. There the sides of the 

 valleys are steep cliffs ; it is all harsh, precipitous, horrible 

 country, which is obviously very unpleasant and very un- 

 attractive to civilized people. 



It is this green covering of plants which makes the 

 difference. The rain that falls is not allowed to cut out 

 ragged ravines ; it is intercepted and soaks into the grasses, 

 which so keep a smooth, gentle outline over hill and valley. 



If you notice the effect of a heavy shower of rain on a road 

 or bare earth, you will see how soon tiny valleys and canons 

 and beds of streamlets are cut out. But on the green fields 

 beside the road, there is no change in the surface at all ! It 

 seems to be quite unaffected by the heaviest storm of rain. 



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