56 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
There is one tree that regularly invades our neglected 
pastures. Itis 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 ina 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 andthen the weeds, andexamining 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- 
iallv 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: 
1. 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 
