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tliey are common Soutliern plants wjiich gradually tliin out north- 

 ward, and reach their northern Hmit here. It is climate which pre- 

 vents their growth. But this is not the case with the Heath. For 

 it is an inhabitant of regions equally cold with ours, and, if it be 

 naturally associated with the Alder, the Cranberry, the Laurel and 

 the Azalea, it ought to be found with them elsewhere, as they exist 

 all over the country in a range of thousands of miles, precisely simi- 

 lar in habit and locality. 



Out of sixty-two species of Ericacece recorded in Dr. Gray's Man- 

 ual of the Northern States, eighteen are common to Europe ; showing 

 that the general circumstances attendant on the growth of plants of 

 this order must be very nearly similar in both places. Of the Eri- 

 cinece proper, the Cassandra calyculata, which grows with the Heath 

 at Tewksbury, a very common New-England plant, is European also. 

 The Bear Berry (^Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi), very common here, is 

 also European. The Andromeda polifolia, a bog plant, also, is com- 

 mon to both countries, as also the Ledum latifolium. These instances 

 are mentioned to pi-ove that there can be no natural preventives to 

 the broadcast occurrence of a plant, if native, whose associates are 

 excessively common, and which are also natives of a country where 

 this plant does grow in equal abundance. It would be very strange 

 that in the whole belt of our Northern country, remarkably homoge- 

 neous in character, and having a flora almost identical throughout, 

 we should find a native plant growing, only on one single half-acre of 

 ground, when there are thousands of acres precisely similar in 

 character everywhere throughout those thousands of miles. 



Mr. Rand says : — 



" May not this be the last vestige, or one of the last, of what was 

 once an American Heath ? " But why must we presuppose that the 

 Heath has died out from the country ? Why, when its associates, the 

 Alder, the Cranberry, the Cassandra and the Azalea, are as common 

 as ever, should this one plant, a long-lived, tough, tenacious plant 

 too, have perished ? The efforts of man have rarely been exerted to 

 extirpate these plants, because they frequent localities unfavorable 

 to the use of man, and, besides, no necessity has existed for this ex- 

 tirpation. 



Let us now examine the facts which have been obtained as to the 

 existence of this Heath. Its occupancy has been traced back fifty 

 years. An old farmer remembers in his boyhood to have seen patches 

 " as big as a bushel basket or larger," of a plant with long, tough 

 roots, which caught the plough. And then it was in precisely the 

 same locality as now, and equally circumscribed. The size of the 

 patches cannot be accurately known. A boy"s observation is not 

 very close ; and we all know how small the objects appear to our 



