42 Woodriiffe-Peacock : The Rock- Soil Method. 



wholly unenclosed till 1800, but as heavily stocked as the 

 circumstances would then permit of ; or in other words, till the 

 turnip and swede were introduced as field crops, and took their 

 place in a recognised four years or longer rotation. As soon as 

 huge flocks and herds were fed on roots during the winter, 

 the whole ground could be systematically and regularly manured 

 — then enclosure followed as a matter of course. 



Now Ballota is not truly confined to village hedges and banks 

 but to those suitable spots of the old enclosures, which immediately 

 surrounded villages, into which the stock from the open commons 

 was driven for security at night. Even where these originally 

 small paddocks, of two or three acres, have been thrown together 

 into large fields, there is no difficulty to the trained eye in 

 recognising them from the new enclosures by the traces of old 

 fences or ditches on the green sward, or from their peculiar 

 fertility. It was on them our forefathers expended their lime 

 dressings to counteract the heavy fall of manure they received 

 nightly from flocks and herds. Had they not used lime con- 

 tinually, these paddocks would, sooner or later, have been 

 poisoned for grass growth. There is a well-known law in such 

 cases. First a pasture grows quantity at the expense of quality, 

 then the herbage grows acid, and as the insoluble manure 

 accumulates in excess the herbage becomes like that surround- 

 ing rotting dung-hills. It is then a poison to stock. Stead}'- 

 liming corrects this decline in quality. 



Now Ballota is a lime lover we know. The ' Flora of West 



Yorkshire ' settled that point, for Mr. F. A. Lees says : — 



' Common on the Permian limestone, rare off it.' We know 



also that one part of lime has a powerful action on 10,000 parts 



by weight of an ordinary agricultural soil. Cannot the presence 



of Ballota be explained to a certain extent by the agricultural 



necessities of past conditions ? My notes suggest perfectly 



clearly that some such influence has been at work. It explains 



the presence of lime where Ballota is now found, whatever the 



rock-soil may consist of. It explains why it is never found in 



pasture unless protected, and how it would be soon exterminated 



in an unenclosed country outside the old village area, where 



stock we know from the manor records was never allowed to 



graze the hedge banks, road sides or ditches.* 



* After I had gone to press with the typed copy of my Ballota nigra 

 paper, I sent the original manuscript on to my friend Mr. F. A. Lees, who 

 in turn sent it on to our mutual friend Canon W. Fowler. 



[ Mr. F. A. Lees writes, commenting on my flore albo records :— ' There 



Naturalist, 



