158 SUMMER 



friable soil, and are therefore found among the corn. If 

 England were all wild land, they would be far less numer- 

 ous, and would only be found on the banks of torrents, the 

 bare and rain-washed flank of hills and cliffs, and other spots 



where for one reason or 

 another there was a 

 stretch of bare grit or 

 gravel on porous soil. 

 Many of them can still 

 be found in the old 

 places, just as house- 

 martins nest here and 

 there on the face of a 

 rock ; but the right soil 

 is formed so seldom with- 

 out the aid of man that 

 many of the common 

 cornfield flowers would 

 be scarce plants if it 

 were not for cultivation. 

 Marsh plants tend to 

 decline in a civilised 

 country, because man 

 sets himself steadily to 

 drain and transform their 

 haunts ; but under the 

 same process plants of 

 well-drained and broken 

 ground thrive and multiply, because the process of tillage 

 turns every piece of arable ground into a congenial home. 



Cornfield plants also receive the largest accession of 

 foreign immigrants. Corn is imported in increasing 

 quantities for food, while seeds of many kinds are purchased 



CORN MARIGOLD 



