CALLUNA VULGARIS, A NATIVE. 39 



boy, he remembers helping his fltther, who then owned the farm, plough up 

 the field in question. It was then more hummocky, and with deeper depres- 

 sions than now. They had great trouble in ploughing it, owing to large 

 patches, "as big as a bushel basket," or larger, of a strange spreading plant 

 which ran on the ground like "ground hemlock," and had long tough roots 

 which cauglit the plough. (Mr. Livingston recognized the Heather shown 

 him as the same plant.) After a great deal of trouble they got a heavy strong 

 harrow, and tore up the plants, which were very old, strong, and tough, piled 

 them in the hollows, and covered them up deep with soil. They then levelled 

 and sowed the field, and, during his father's and his occupancy of the farm, the 

 field was always, until recently, used for mowing. He cannot say how many 

 plants there then were ; but knows they were large, and gave a great deal of 

 trouble. He has never seen the plant elsewhere, and had forgotten the cir- 

 cumstance, but it recurs vividly to his mind, and he is fully persuaded of the 

 identity of the plant. During his occupancy of the farm he does not remem- 

 ber the plant; it may have existed, but as the field was mowed each year he 

 thinks the constant cutting* would have killed them when they came to any 

 size. In order to assure himself of the identity of the plant he showed a speci- 

 men to his mother, who is still living, at a very advanced age ; she at once 

 recognized the plant, told where it grew, said it had grown there for many 

 years, and remembered the trouble it was to plough the field. Mr. Livingston 

 then went to Tewksbury, and, undirected, went to the spot where the plant 

 now grows. 



The vitality of the seeds of the Heather is well known; indeed experience 

 has shown that it is difficult to keep land in pasture which has formerly been 

 covered with it. 



It is well known that continual cutting will in time kill any bush or shrub, 

 and there is nothing strange in supposing that the heather may, after its original 

 destruction, have come up year after year among the grass, been mowed with 

 the grass, and unnoticed; indeed it would have been strange if a farmer had 

 noticed such a plant, unless its encroachment on his mowing, pasture, or arable 

 land, called his attention to it. 



There is nothing improbable that the plants now well established in the 

 locality, came from seed of the plants destroyed some fifty years ago. Allow 

 the present plants are only ten years old, and that the original plants were de- 

 stroyed fifty years ago, say in 1810 ; this only gives us forty years for the seed 

 to have retained its vitality ; by no means an improbable time, and the proba- 

 bility is, the plants have kept growing, more or less, ever since. 



Or again, the present plants may have sprung from seed of seedlings from 

 the original plants, as the Heather flowers very young, is a low-growing bush, 

 and might have flowered year after year unnoticed ; indeed, to give the present 

 number of plants from seed, it is only necessary for one low branch, close to 

 the ground, to have escaped the scythe ; this is not only not impossible, but 

 very probable. The seed of the Heather is very minute, and the seed vessel 



