486 OBSERVATIONS ON 



male plants in every garden, that their farina iiiiirht 

 impregnate the blossoms. The female plants without 

 their male attendants are not in their natural state: 

 hence we may suppose the frequent failure of crop so 

 incident to hop-grounds; no other growth, cultivated 

 by man, has such frequent and general failures as hops. 

 Two hop-gardens much injured by a hailstorm, 

 June 5, show now (September 2) a prodigious crop, 

 and larger and fairer hops than any in the parish. The 

 owners seem now to be convinced that the hail, by 

 beating off the tops of the binds, has increased the 

 side shoots, and improved the crop. Query therefore, 

 should not the tops of hops be pinched off when the 

 binds are very gross and strong ? 



SEED LYING DORMANT. 



THE naked part of the Hanger is now covered with 

 thistles of various kinds. The seeds of these thistles 

 may have lain probably under the thick shade of the 

 beeches for many years, but could not vegetate till the 

 sun and air were admitted. When old beech-trees are 

 cleared away, the naked ground in a year or two be- 

 comes covered with strawberry plants, the seeds of 

 which must have lain in the ground for an age at least. 

 One of the slidders or trenches down the middle of the 

 Hanger, close covered over with lofty beeches near a 

 century old, is still called Strawberry Slidder, though no 

 strawberries have grown there in the memory of man. 

 That sort of fruit, did once, no doubt, abound there, and 

 will again when the obstruction is removed 5 . 



5 Many years ago I observed the whole line of the fresh-made bank of 

 a new cut then in progress near Spalding in Lincolnshire completely 

 covered with wild mustard, though not a plant of it was to be seen else- 

 where in the neighbourhood. This seed must have been thrown up from 

 the bottom of the cut, which to the best of my recollection was twelve or 

 fourteen feet deep: and I conclude that it must have been antedilu- 

 vial. W. H. 



