30 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 
Digitalis, Pteris, etc., and at its junction is a limestone swamp, with 
Sphagnum (very rare outside Charnwood Forest), ‘mountain fern, heath 
rush, and several other interesting helophytes. 
(5) In East Leicestershire a series of woods of ash oakwood type 
occurs on the Great Chalky Boulder Clay, Middle and Upper Lias clays 
and loams and calcareous sandstones and marls, with a characteristic 
flora not found elsewhere, including wood forget-me-not, which colours 
the woods a cambridge blue in May and June; nettle-leaved bellflower, 
lesser teasel, herb Paris, wood vetch, small reed grass, etc. 
THE FLORA OF LEICESTERSHIRE IN RELATION TO HuMAN ACTIVITIES. 
Leicestershire as a great grassland country.—As ‘ the Shires ’ Leicester- 
shire is a great grassland county which affords some of the best hunting 
in England, fox hunting having been a recognised occupation as well as 
pastime locally since about 1670, when a pack was kept at Tooley Hall, 
near Peckleton. This excellence of grassland is no doubt due to the 
prevalence of a clayey or clayey loam soil over a wide area. It is in fact 
especially characteristic of the clays and loams of the Lower Lias, Upper 
Lias, and Great Chalky Boulder Clay, and other less extensive outcrops, 
e.g. Middle Lias. On these clays the grassland appears to be especially 
suitable for cheese-making. Stilton cheese which goes all over the world 
was first made at Withcote, but sold for a family reason as Stilton. 
Withcote is in East Leicestershire on these clays. It was the originator 
of the old Board of Agriculture, William Marshall, who, in 1790, in his 
Rural Economy of the Midland Counties, one of his agricultural surveys of 
every county, first showed the necessity for studying the character of the 
grassland in order to select the best land for cheese-making. For this 
purpose, during his survey of Leicestershire, he made careful lists of all 
the species of grasses, legumes, and other types in each field, noting the 
frequency of each species. He likewise cultivated grasses to determine 
which was more suitable for this purpose. Marshall was thus really the 
first ecologist in this country, not only in recognising the difference 
between different grass types on different soils and the need for determin- 
ing their dominance or frequency, but he also knew that besides the exist- 
ence of different natural types of grassland, woodlands were similarly 
dependent upon soil ; and that there were different types of woods, based 
on this factor. He likewise understood that there were natural woods 
and artificial woods, and realised that woods on ‘ ridge and furrow ’ were 
of the latter type. By cultivation of the grasses he established one of the 
leading principles of modern plant breeding and genetics. 
SCENERY AND VEGETATION : THE BEAUTY OF CHARNWOOD FoRrESsT. 
Natural vegetation is based mainly upon the geological formation and 
soils to which they give rise so that where the one is diverse the other will 
be equally diversified. Charnwood Forest is structurally an ancient 
mountain chain, with its highest peaks buried and a very small proportion 
of its height and extent is visible. The highest point is but g12 ft. 
(Bardon Hill), and apart from that the rest of the high ground in the north- 
west is about 800 ft., whilst the general altitude of the country west of the 
