224 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



I had, accordingly, the best preparation for a visit 

 to Wolmer by a few days' ramble in Alice Holt Forest, 

 with its endless oaks, and in the luxuriant meadows 

 and cool shady woods at Waverley Abbey. It was a 

 great change to Wolmer Forest. Although its soil is 

 a "hungry, bare sand," it has long been transformed 

 from the naked heath of Gilbert White's time to a 

 vast unbroken plantation. Looked upon from some 

 eminence it has a rough, dark aspect. There are no 

 smooth summits and open pleasant places ; all is covered 

 by the shaggy mantle of the pines. But it is nowhere 

 gloomy, as pine woods are apt to be: the trees are 

 not big enough, on account of that hungry sand in 

 which they are rooted, or because they are not yet 

 very old. The pines not being too high and shady to 

 keep the sun and air out, the old aboriginal vegetation 

 has not been killed : in most places the ling forms a 

 thick undergrowth, and looks green, while outside of 

 the forest, in the full glare of the sun, it has a harsh, 

 dry, dead appearance. 



On account of this abundance of ling a strange and 

 lovely appearance is produced in some favourable years, 

 when the flowers are in great profusion and all the 

 plants blossom at one time. That most beautiful sight 

 of the early spring, when the bloom of the wild hyacinth 

 forms a sheet of azure colour under the woodland trees, 

 is here repeated in July, but with a difference of hue 

 both in the trees above and in the bloom beneath. 



In May, Wolmer is comparatively flowerless, and 



