Railway Gardens 



with a vegetation entirely of nature's planting. 

 In a few cases, where the ground is treacherous, 

 the sides are planted with plants of different kinds 

 that will help to hold up the shifty soil ; but in 

 the greater part of the line the clothing is all 

 natural. And then this curious result follows 

 that the sides of a railway are found to be safe 

 places for many plants which in other places 

 have to fight their way against many diffi- 

 culties ; for the sides of the railways are not eaten 

 down by cattle or sheep, and they are very little 

 trespassed upon, and so plants get a good chance 

 of growing and getting well-established ; and rail- 

 way gardens are formed, planted by nature, and 

 often furnished with plants that are unknown to 

 the immediate neighbourhood, and that are in 

 some cases rarities in the British flora and these 

 are the railway gardens of which I wish to say 

 something. 



It is, indeed, marvellous how very soon the 

 bare, raw face of a railway cutting or embank- 

 ment will get fully clothed with plants. On the 

 Midland Railway, between Bath and Bristol, a 

 deep cutting showed a vast cliff of red sandstone 

 known to be of very great depth, and butting up 

 against it was a series of liassic formations of 

 various ages, such formations not lying horizontally, 

 but forming a succession of concavities lying one 

 upon another, and with the intervals filled with 

 liassic clays. It was easily seen, was visited by 

 many geologists, but only for a short time ; within 



