The Hand of Man 5 1 



and swamp are not inviting, nor would they repay much scientific examina- 

 tion. Ecological experiments pre-suppose some sort of control of the 

 biological factors. Modern attempts at saving tracts of country as bird- 

 preserves or sanctuaries for indigenous fauna and flora, however well-meaning, 

 have no future value ; any more than modern forestry with its serried rows 

 of .saplings will restore the Neolithic forest. Nothing in nature stands still. 

 Just as one cannot restore the original condition of swamp-woodland in the 

 Oxford Valley, with its necessitated human life in wattled huts on scanty 

 diet, and would not do any scientific work if one did ; so it is now equally 

 impossible to maintain a wild jungle at one's door or in the back garden. 

 The seeming wild is not so very wild after all ; the old English term ' waste ' 

 is peculiarly applicable. Any sort of selection, whether natural or artificial, 

 implies the ultimate advantage of a few types at the expense of the others. 

 The relations that have made the countryside what it is during the last 

 1,500 years represent the influence of a set of physical factors, as distinct 

 from the original selection of nature in post-glacial times, as it is from the 

 future still increasingly artificial selection of the farmer and forester. When 

 townspeople bemoan the ruin of the country as they have seen it, or read 

 about it in the past, it is only a change of ecological conditions that they are 

 witnessing ; whether better than any previous changes in the past, or not, 

 may be left for the future to decide. The present time is one pre-eminently 

 of transition and survival ; it is the cause and the manner of the change 

 which is the present centre of interest ; though it may be admitted that the 

 odds are usually on the side of pessimism. 



As all floristic regions are thus entirely secondary and artificial in such 

 fundamental features as water-supply, destruction by grazing, felling,draining, 

 clearing, and direct human interference, it will be observed that: 



(1) The exact valuation of the indigenous flora becomes a matter of 

 difficulty. 



(2) The nature of the alien-flora, immigrant at various times, has to be 

 reckoned with. 



(3) No effects of succession can be traced beyond such cases as: the 

 drainage of a ditch, the replacement of meadow-land and pasture by allot- 

 ments with their weeds of cultivation, or the effect of close-planting of forest- 

 plots on the flora of forest-clearings. 



(4) No continuity of observation over a long-continued period can be 

 guaranteed ; at any time the association may be destroyed, removed, or 

 cleared, by agencies beyond the control of the observer. 



At any rate, one thing is clear, with the removal of man and all his 

 works, the flora would not take long in reverting to its original condition ; 

 and with man would go all his associated weeds and aliens, as well as his 

 dependent food-plants, trees, and animal races. Possibly the whole efforts 

 of human activity and so-called progress mark but an incident in the life of 

 the indigenous flora. The latter was, in primary essentials, the same as it is 

 now, 10,000 years ago : the boldest speculation can scarcely look forward 

 to the probable status of the human population in 10,000 years time. But 

 it is quite clear that if man is not here, the same old flora will be. Thus, 

 damp woodland, if not forested, would become more or less impenetrable 

 jungle (as in parts of Headington Wick). Neglected hill-pastures soon revert 

 to thorn-scrub of the type seen in Headington Quarry-heaps. All arable 

 fields, left to themselves, would follow suit, and become much as their hedge- 

 banks. The green pastures of the water-meadows would be converted into 

 willow and thorn-scrub. The ditches, blocked by vegetation and fallen 

 trees, would cease to drain the flats, and these would revert to swamp- 

 woodland. The river, no longer controlled by the lock-system, would resume 



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