442 OBSERVATIONS ON 



SEED LYING DORMANT 



The naked part of the Hanger is now covered with 

 thistles of various kinds. The seeds of these thistles may 

 have lain probably under the thick shade of the beeches 

 for many years, but could not vegetate till the sun and air 

 were admitted. When old beech trees are cleared away, 

 the naked ground in a year or two becomes covered with 

 strawberry plants, the seeds of which must have lain in the 

 ground for an age at least. One of the slidders or trenches 

 down the middle of the Hanger, close covered over with 

 lofty beeches near a century old, is still called strawberry 

 slidder, though no strawberries have grown there in the 

 memory of man. That sort of fruit did once, no doubt, 

 abound there, and wUl again when the obstruction is 

 removed. 



BEANS SOWN BY BIRDS 



Many horse-beans sprang up in my field-walks in the 

 autumn, and are now grown to a considerable height. As 

 the Ewel was in beans last summer, it is most likely that 

 these seeds came from thence ; but then the distance 

 is too considerable for them to have been conveyed by 

 mice. It is most probable therefore that they were 

 brought by birds, and in particular by jays and pies, who 

 seem to have hid them among the grass and moss, and then 

 to have forgotten where they had stowed them. Some 

 peas are growing also in the same situation, and probably 

 under the same circumstances. 



CUCUMBERS SET BY BEES 



If bees, who are much the best setters of cucumbers, do 

 not happen to take kindly to the frames, the best way is to 

 tempt them by a little honey put on the male and female 

 bloom. When they are once induced to haunt the frames, 

 they set all the fruit, and wUl hover with impatience round 



