FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS 



The flowers that follow man and the plough are perhaps no more 

 artificial than those of the fields and meadows previously described, 

 which have been equally disturbed by agricultural operations following 

 the felling of forests, but there is a difference of degree, and a decidedly 

 marked difference of origin as regards the unstable flora of a truly 

 arable pasture, greater than that of one which is not actually under 

 cultivation, unless we regard grazing as on a par with ploughing, which 

 to be logical we ought to do. But with the former operation there is a 

 marked physiological effect and a repeated reduction of all herbaceous 

 growth to one level, while in the case of a cornfield we have free 

 growth allowed till harvest, following seed ripening, and a temporary 

 cessation of the struggle for existence caused by grazing. But, in the 

 cornfield there is not that stationary association of species that a grass 

 meadow possesses. It is largely ephemeral, the weeds (plants not 

 classed as cultivated as barley, wheat, oats, &c.) being of sporadic, 

 alien or variable, colonist or denizen type, which may or may not 

 persist perennially or annually. 



Arable land generally is well drained and dry, and hence we may 

 class it as pasture on cultivated soil, or under the plough. It is thus 

 a part of the artificial though to some extent (because so stamped by 

 time) natural mesophytic type of community, i.e. requiring a medium 

 supply of moisture. 



Really the cornfield flora is on a par with a waste land association 

 (Vol. V, Section XI), which is here kept separate. But though there 

 are many plants common to both, yet there are some peculiar to each ; 

 and because they have this distinctive character, though caused by the 

 same abnormal factor, man, we keep them separate, as they are also 

 topographically distinct. And this descriptive account of the common 

 wild flowers blends the natural with the expedient; that is to say, the 

 field botanist, whom we have especially in mind, finds here the most 



