238 Herbage and Shrubs spontaneously produced, 



appearecj to me to have been, at some veiy distant pe- 

 riod, the bottom of a lake, rimmed by ridgy and varie- 

 gated hills, and formed by a large stream which skirts 

 one of its sides; the channel whereof seems evidently 

 to have been changed. White and grey pebbles, and 

 shells of aquatic animals, ai'e found in vai'ious parts of 

 its area, distant from the stream. There are now im- 

 penetrable thickets of flourishing white thorn; through 

 which passages were cut, before the lines could be run. 

 These were not known to have been on the land, when 

 the pines were standing ; nor ai^e they common in the 

 neighbourhood. Nothing will grow under pines thick- 

 set. In places to which the sun had access, was found 

 a plentiful growth of the herb called here catnip. — 

 Whether it be the same also called catmint (nepetaj I 

 am not certain. It grew with singular vigour, where the 

 strawberries had been precedently. The thorn and cat- 

 nip designate (as this for the most part is) good land; 

 and delight in soils, loose and inclining to sand and loam. 

 But strawberries^ though they flourish in soils of similar 

 texture, yet, if productive, do not generally indicate fer- 

 tility. In rich soils, either natural or artificial, they run 

 to vine, and set false fruit; though they blossom pro- 

 fusely, and those bloom the most which produce no fruit. 

 But the barren and prolific blossoms, are easily distin- 

 guishable. 



The old neighbours dwelt much on the exuberant 

 plenty, and general cover of the strawberries; which, 

 they said, could be scented, when perfectly ripe, from 

 a great distance. Some of them described the vast 

 surface and waste of flowers, when the plants blos- 

 somed, in a stile, that, if the fact had not been \\&^ 



