224 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



uncultivated, tangled corner of a field which the plough 

 never touches. In the rank competition that prevails 

 among grasses and stouter plants, annual and perennials 

 alike, there is no sign of method, no allotment of space. 



The effect to the eye is delightful, but it is a 

 delight that owes nothing to exact arrangement, 

 to careful apportioning of soil and facilities for sun- 

 light between the various eager rival and neighbour 

 plants. To find an economy of arrangement we have 

 to turn to the highly-farmed field itself and even 

 there, on soil carefully ploughed and weeded, and 

 harrowed and rolled, and sown in drill, and even 

 thinned perhaps, the chaos of the wild is ever 

 striving to insinuate itself. 



This side of green life in these teeming, intensely- 

 growing days of the year is the laisser faire of Nature. 

 Everything is thrown on its own resources, must 

 take its chance haphazard in the thick struggle of 

 May and early summer. True, the number of plants 

 on many a yard of soil which shoot up, and find 

 enough breathing space above and root space be- 

 neath to thrive and flower and seed, is astonishing 

 and here arrangement might seem to prevail, an 

 arrangement that not one inch of earth or of light 

 space above this inch shall be wasted. But then 

 the host of little seedlings that, as the tangle shoots 

 up, must be starved and spoilt ! The successes in this 

 open competition however many in one square yard 

 of earth are a very few compared with the failures. 



