Trees in the Downs. 25 



huge billowy swells of green, with wide hollows, cul- 

 tivated on the lower levels, but open and unenclosed 

 for mile after mile, almost without hedges, and seem- 

 ingly treeless save for the gnarled and stunted 'haw- 

 thorns apparently a bare expanse ; but more minute 

 acquaintance leads to different conclusions. 



Here, to begin with, on the same ridge as the 

 earthwork and not a quarter of a mile distant, is a 

 small clump of wind-harassed trees, growing on the 

 very edge. They are firs and beech, and, though so 

 thoroughly exposed to furious gales, have attained 

 a fair height even in that thin soil. Beech and fir, 

 then, can grow here. Away yonder on another ridge 

 is another such a clump, indistinct from the distance ; 

 though there is a pleasant breeze blowing and their 

 boughs must sway to it, they appear motionless. 

 With the exception of the poplar, whose tall top as 

 it slowly bends to the blast describes such an arc as 

 to make its motion visible afar, the most violent wind 

 fails to enable the eye to separate the lines of light 

 coming so nearly parallel from the branches of an 

 elm or an oak, even at a comparatively short dis- 

 tance. The tree looks perfectly still, though you 

 know it must be vibrating to the trunk and loosen- 

 ing the earth with the wrench at its anchoring, 

 roots. 



In more than one of the deep coombes there is a 

 row of elms out of sight from this post of van- 

 tage whose tops are about level with the plain, 

 where you may stand on the edge and throw a stone 

 into the rook's nest facing you. On a lower spur, 

 which juts out into the valley, is a broad ash wood. 

 Little more than a mile from hence, on the most 



