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under which a large number of common species were now in occupation 
of the soil. 
In speaking of the neighbourhood, he should avail himself of the 
sharp lines afforded by Nature for its definition, and keep entirely to 
the chalk hills and the coast, by that means avoiding as much as 
possible any reference to the plants which belonged to the Weald 
beyond the abrupt northern ending of the Downs, or to those plants 
which were peculiar to rivers or marshes ; for, immediately we began to 
consider the state in which many of the commonest species were grow- 
ing, it would become evident that, although they were truly indigenous, 
they were now in situations controlled by cultivation ; under which 
term he included pasturage as well as tillage. So great on every hand 
were the changes which cultivation had produced, that no trees would 
now be supposed to be growing in natural or primeval woods beyond 
the chalk ; and the rivers which came down to the sea on the east and 
west, instead of influencing a wide extent of surface and encouraging 
a dense vegetation by the deposit of fresh material after winter floods, 
were now confined between artificial embankments, and no longer able 
to affect the adjacent levels beyond furnishing an abundant supply of 
water ; hence large tracts formerly covered with phragmites and other 
coarse grasses were changed into valuable pasture, composed of grasses 
which originally could never have existed there. 
It was entirely out of his province to venture upon any digression 
into the geological particulars appertaining to the chalk formation ; 
but there were some peculiarities relating to the surface that were at 
once conspicuous in taking a survey of the Down-land situate between 
the Adur and the Ouse : beautiful rounded outlines of hill and valley, 
without any projecting rocks or stones. The heaps of flints formerly 
existing in some valleys having been in recent times removed, and the 
few blocks of transported sandstone, like those once in Goldstone 
Bottom, having for the most part shared a similar fate, one moss which 
grew on these blocks had been lost to the district. 
The surface had been left by Nature continuously clothed with a 
dense short turfy vegetation, consisting of perennial plants, so closely 
matted together that many annual or biennial plants could never rise 
through it, nor would they be able to obtain a foothold were it not for 
the breaking of the turf by the burrowing of the rabbit and the 
hillocks produced by the ant. These latter, although very numerous, 
rarely gave rise to any large plant ; but diminutive species, like Draba 
