Railway Gardens 



many plants found on railways. Embankments 

 are often made of materials brought from a great 

 distance, and the embankment is of a very different 

 nature from the surrounding ground on which it 

 is raised ; and in the materials are often the begin- 

 nings of the vegetation which in time will clothe 

 the embankment either in the shape of roots or 

 buried seeds. Then comes in the other great 

 factor of success in the full growth of the vegeta- 

 tion so commenced, that it is from the very first 

 undisturbed, not grazed on by cattle, and little 

 trespassed on by man. 



Geologists have long recognised that one of the 

 greatest helps to geology in recent times has been 

 found in the railways. During the last seventy 

 years wonderful geological sections have been 

 brought to light which would, but for the rail- 

 ways, have been entirely buried ; and from these 

 sections many new lessons in geology have been 

 learned, and if many old theories have been de- 

 stroyed, many substantial truths have taken their 

 place. The service which railways have given to 

 botany is different. They have not revealed new 

 plants, but I am sure they are doing much to 

 preserve old ones, and this result is none the less 

 pleasant because it was unexpected and unintended. 

 When contractors complete a railway, nothing can 

 be much uglier in all the parts where old soil has 

 been disturbed, or new brought in ; but the rail- 

 way is not completed when the contractors leave 

 it Nature then takes it in hand, and, with its 



