OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY n 



mossy bank into a stream and hurries on to the sea. 

 From the sea in the heat of the day water will rise 

 again as mist, and be spread through the travelling air, 

 until the clouds break once more on the mountain-side. 

 So, as we set out on our walk over the hills, we start 

 with the big idea of the circulation of matter. As the 

 old Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "all things 

 flow"; and surely that is above all true of water. 



After leaving the highroad we skirted a gently slop- 

 ing field where bullocks were lying half awake, and 

 then we jumped over a wall on to the real hillside. We 

 found ourselves in a forest of bracken, which seemed 

 to be spreading over the short grass. It was a thicker 

 and a bigger forest than when we were there before, 

 and unluckily that is just what is happening over wide 

 areas of hillside and hillfoot. The bracken is an extra- 

 ordinarily robust fern, very resistant to difficulties and 

 emphatically aggressive. It is spreading over and 

 ruining much fine pasture. In some places it is 

 actually killing the heather. Here, then, we have an 

 instance of the stern struggle for existence, a struggle 

 for foothold and food and light; and it is not the higher 

 plant but the lower that is surviving. Something will 

 need to be done to check the intrusions of the bracken. 

 These are sometimes met by cutting and by spraying 

 with sulphuric acid, but this costs time and money. 

 Perhaps there is more hope in discovering new uses 

 for the bracken, so that there will be positive induce- 

 ment to farmers to spend labour in cutting. It makes 

 good bedding for cattle ; it has strong antiseptic quali- 

 ties, and makes good stuff for storing special seed- 

 potatoes in; the young shoots might be fed to pigs and 

 cattle; there is a considerable quantity of potash about 



