132 PLANTS AND ANIMALS. [CHAP. 
sheep which could have lived on it then, a hundred 
can live now. And yet, what it was. once, that it 
might become again—it surely would round here, if 
this brave English people died out of it, and the 
land was left to itself once more. 
“What would happen then, you may guess for 
yourself, from what you see happen whenever the 
land is left to itself as it is in the wood alone. In 
that wood you can still see in the grass the ridges 
and furrows which show that it was once ploughed 
and sown by man; perhaps as late as the time of 
Henry the Eighth, when a great deal of poor land... 
was thrown out of tillage, to become forest and down 
once more. And what is the mount now? A jungle 
of oak and beech, cherry and holly, young and old, 
all growing up together, with the mountain ash and 
bramble and furze coming up so fast beneath them, 
that we have to cut the paths clear again year by 
year. Why, even the little cow-wheat, a very old- 
world plant, which only grows in ancient woods, has 
found its way back again, I know not whence, and 
covers the open spaces with its pretty yellow and 
white flowers. Man had conquered this mount, you 
see, from Madam How, hundreds of years ago. So 
man conquered the wood for a while; and it became 
cornfield instead of forest; but he was not strong 
and wise enough, three hundred years ago, to keep 
what he had conquered; and back came Madam 
How, and took the place into her own hands, and 
bade the old forest trees and plants come back again 
—as they would come if they were not stopped year 
by year, down from the wood, over the pastures— 
iia tins 
