56 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 



There is one tree that regularly invades our neglected 

 pastures. It is the hawthorn. The cattle browse on it, but 

 they leave a remnant of new growth every year. So its 

 increase is very slow until it gets beyond their reach — slow 

 but sure. All the while its dense cone of stubs is shaped 

 smoothly as in a lathe. But once emancipated from their 

 browsing, it suddenly expands upward into the normal 

 form of the spreading hawthorn tree. 



Study 6. Pasture Plants 



Any old pasture will do for this : the more neglected, the 

 more interesting its population is likely to be. The equip- 

 ment needed is merely something to dig with. Let all the 

 work be done individually. 



The program of work will consist in digging up one by one, 

 first the forage plants and then the weeds, andexarrining them, 

 root and branch. Give special study to the forage plants — 

 the grasses and the clovers. Dig them up and pull them up. 

 Find their predetermined breaking points. Observe their 

 mode of spreading through the soil. Trample them, espec- 

 ially with the heels of your shoes. Observe their preparedness 

 for the rooting of dismembered parts. Observe in the weeds 

 also the various ways in which they avoid being pulled up or 

 eaten or trampled out of existence. Also stake out a square 

 yard of typical pasture and take a census of its plant popula- 

 tion. 



The record of this study will consist in: 



i . Annotated lists of : 



(a) Forage plants. 



(b) Weeds (further classified if desired), with indica- 



tions of size, duration (whether annual, bien- 

 nial, or perennial), mode of seed dispersal 

 (whether by wind or water or carried by ani- 

 mals on their feet or in their wool) . Vegetative 



