114 The soil cmd the countryside 



read in Kingsley's Hereward the WaJce what they 

 used to be like in old days, and even as late as 1662 

 Dugdale writes that here "no element is good. The 

 air cloudy, gross and full of rotten harrs^ ; water 

 putrid and muddy, yea, full of loathsome vermin ; the 

 earth spongy and boggy; and the fire noisome by the 

 stink of smoking hassocks ^Z' But during the Stuart 

 period wide ditches or drains were dug, into which the 

 water could flow and be pumped into rivers. This 

 reclamation has been continued to the present time, 

 and the black soils as well as the others in the Fen 

 districts can be made very productive. 



We have seen that a change in the soil produces a 

 change in the plants that grow on it. The flora (i.e. the 

 collection of plants) of a clay soil is quite different from 

 that of a sandy soil, and both are different from that of 

 a chalk or of a fen soil. In like manner draining a 

 meadow or manuring it alters its flora : some of the 

 plants disappear and new ones come in. Even an 

 operation like mowing a lawn, if carried on sufficiently 

 regularly, causes a change. In all these cases the plants 

 favoured by the new conditions are enabled to grow 

 rather better than those that are less favoured ; thus 

 in the regularly mown lawn the short growing grasses 

 have an advantage over those like brome that grow 

 taller, and so crowd them out. When land is drained 

 those plants that like a great quantity of water no longer 

 do quite so well as before, while those that cannot put 

 up with much water now have a better chance. In the 

 natural state there is a great deal of competition among 



1 Harr is an old word meaning sea-fog. 



2 Hassock is the name given to coarse grass which forms part of the 

 turf burnt in the cottages. 



