A BLACKBERRY BUSH IN AUTUMN. 183 



some ten feet in height, and fifty in circumference, 

 looking in the distance more like a haystack than a 

 blackberry bush. It owes its form entirely to nature, 

 and not to art ; the long, flexible stems having sprung 

 up, and, when they became too heavy to bear their own 

 weight, having drooped over until they touched the 

 ground. This has gone on year by year, each season 

 adding to the size of the clump, and therefore to the 

 length of the new stems. One stem of this year's 

 growth is at least twenty feet in length, and at its 

 base about as thick as a man's thumb. It has sprung 

 from the middle of the clump, forced its way to the 

 light, and then continued to grow so rapidly, when it 

 could put forth its leaves, that it has overhung the 

 whole of the clump, and its end lies trailing over the 

 ground. Just in the same way, and for the same 

 reason, the ferns in the New Forest run up to consider- 

 able heights, often exceeding eleven feet from the 

 ground to their tips. 



If the long trailing branches be drawn aside, the 

 whole clump is seen to be constituted in a most curious 

 manner. A mere shell of foliage and living shoots 

 envelopes it, while the centre is composed of a thick 

 tangled mass of dead, dry, and shrivelled branches, 

 through which a few powerful shoots, such as that 

 which has just been mentioned, have forced their way. 

 Such a spot as this is just the place which rabbits love. 

 All round the clump their resting places are at once 

 discernible by a practised eye, the grass being pressed 



