132 PLANTS AND ANIMALS. [CHAP. 



sheep which could have lived on it then, a hundred 

 can live now. And yet, what it was once, that it 

 might become again it surely would round here, if 

 this brave English people died out of it, and the 

 land was left to itself once more. 



"What would happen then, you may guess for 

 yourself, from what you see happen whenever the 

 land is left to itself as it is in the wood alone. In 

 that wood you can still see in the grass the ridges 

 and furrows which show that it was once ploughed 

 and sown by man ; perhaps as late as the time of 

 Henry the Eighth, when a great deal of poor land . . . 

 was thrown out of tillage, to become forest and down 

 once more. And what is the mount now? A jungle 

 of oak and beech, cherry and holly, young and old, 

 all growing up together, with the mountain ash and 

 bramble and furze coming up so fast beneath them, 

 that we have to cut the paths clear again year by 

 year. Why, even the little cow-wheat, a very old- 

 world plant, which only grows in ancient woods, has 

 found its way back again, I know not whence, and 

 covers the open spaces with its pretty yellow and 

 white flowers. Man had conquered this mount, you 

 see, from Madam How, hundreds of years ago. So 

 man conquered the wood for a while ; and it became 

 cornfield instead of forest ; but he was not strong 

 and wise enough, three hundred years ago, to keep 

 what he had conquered ; and back came Madam 

 How, and took the place into her own hands, and 

 bade the old forest trees and plants come back again 

 as they would come if they were not stopped year 

 by year, down from the wood, over the pastures 



