328 PLANT LIFE. 



perpetual destruction of young trees by cattle and goats 

 must, even then, have greatly denuded the country. 

 That this was the case seems certain from the condition 

 of things revealed in the new statistical account, drawn 

 up about the years 1840 to 1850. After the Waterloo 

 campaign an extraordinary development of agriculture 

 began ; and it continued until the beginning of the 

 recent fall of prices, and the decay of the farming 

 industry. 



In the years 1840 to 1850 we find the land still 

 largely open, but being actively enclosed and partitioned 

 off by dykes and hedges. The works of all landscape 

 painters of this period show clearly that, in their time, 

 the ordinary road was entirely without hedges or walls 

 of any sort. Somewhat before this also, about I 8 i 5 to 

 1830, the lairds and country gentlemen were, on the 

 whole, extremely prosperous. Many of the country 

 houses were built on a scale of magnificence most 

 unusual before that period^; and landscape gardening 

 with its most valuable result, the addition of scattered 

 woodlands and pleasant avenues of trees, became a 

 fashionable pursuit. 



Modern farming and industries, with railways, the 

 opening of factories and the general use of coal, have 

 unquestionably altered the vegetation far more than 

 the changes which occurred during all the preceding 

 centuries up to 1820. The net result is that, in any 

 average landscape in Britain, no part is in an absolutely 

 natural condition, (i) The Eiver alluvium and estuaries 

 are drained and under cultivation; (2) Arable land with 

 special weeds has been formed from original oak-scrub 



^ The 1 750- 1 81 3 house compared with the mansion built in 1830-1860 

 gives a most instructive comparison of agricultural values at these two 

 periods. 



