Grassland and Pasture 73 



The best hay-fields at the present time are those of the broad stretches 

 of alluvium on the banks of the Cherwell (Marston district), and other 

 uncontrolled streams (Hinksey Stream, Cold Arbour). Where the main 

 river is locked and kept at head-water, full water-content maintained above 

 the lock affords a good crop (Oxey Mead, Tow-path fields, and Meadow Lane 

 above Iffley Lock) ; but a reduced supply below the lock, with low tail-water, 

 implies a scanty yield. The luxuriance of the floral display and variety 

 follows that of the grasses. 



Roadsides. 



To the ordinary pedestrian the open roadside plays a part out of all 

 proportion to its intrinsic value botanically and the amount of ground 

 involved, since roads afford the primary means of exploring the countryside, 

 and roadside plants if large enough compel the attention of the passer-by, 

 and even of the motorist. Although suggestively viatical? such plants do 

 not constitute any special ecological class. It is evident that all roads are not 

 only wholly artificial, but of comparatively recent formation, as also liable to 

 rapid modern improvements. Any plants colonizing the sides must be at 

 best residual strays, or immigrants from fields, woodland, and waste places ; 

 that is to say, all are plants of other stations, finding a locus in these new 

 tracts, and surviving as best they can. It is also obvious that a road open 

 to any considerable traffic offers minor areas of local denudation, as broken 

 ground, in which strays from other stations are again so far humanly 

 assisted in their struggle to acquire some tenure in unoccupied ground. 



Where only the merest relics of waste or common land remain, and the 

 fields, pastures, and woodland are increasingly closed to the general public, 

 the foot-paths, way-sides, and public roads remain the station to which the 

 botanical student is increasingly relegated. Hence it is preferable to regard 

 the road-side with its boundary fences as a convenient station for meeting 

 the residual types of other formations, now maintaining a precarious exist- 

 ence, under wholly artificial conditions, and open at any time to ruthless 

 destruction at the hand of any local Road-Surveyor. 2 



The possibilities of the situation are considerable, ranging from a 

 modern urban road with no vegetation whatever, to a primitive country 

 wayside, neglected and derelict, which however economically inefficient as a 

 means of transport, may, in the course of 50-100 years, become a thing of 

 beauty, as one of the most picturesque features of the countryside. Such 

 neglected roadways exhibit: (i) a general regression to grassland, (2) the 

 introduction of thorn-scrub, 3 (3) passing on to all stages of regressive wood- 

 land, (4) affording ultimately an avenue of trees of high-forest, meeting 

 overhead in full canopy, and sheltering a wealth of woodland forms in a 

 humus-bottom. 



In mediaeval England, as there were no hedges to the fields, so there were 



no roads as now considered. Main roads had been constructed by the Romans 



for military transport, and the partial remains of a Vicinal Roman Road below 



Shotover, are still sufficiently well-defined to mark the track, though this has 



been lost in places by ploughing (Stow Wood, Baldon). 



In Saxon, Danish, and Norman times, the river was the main line of 



communication, and local roads were mere cattle-tracks from one township to 



consuming in the time a quartern loaf of bread and a gallon of beer, with possibly a dozen pipes of 

 tobacco. 



1 Watson (1847), Cybele Britannica, p. 66, includes 'viatical' with plants of rubbish-heaps and 

 frequented places. 



* Highway Surveyors (1835) can call on the owners of any hedges adjacent to roads to have 

 them ' cut, pruned, and plashed ', and the trees lopped and pruned, from October to March. 



8 ' The wayside where thorns grow up ', as a general phase of inefficient husbandry. 



