Railway Gardens 



with a vegetation entirely of nature's planting. 

 In a few cases, where the ground is treacherous, 

 the sides are planted with plants of different kinds 

 that will help to hold up the shifty soil ; but in 

 the greater part of the line the clothing is all 

 natural. And then this curious result follows — 

 that the sides of a railway are found to be safe 

 places for many plants which in other places 

 have to fight their way against many diffi- 

 culties ; for the sides of the railways are not eaten 

 down by cattle or sheep, and they are very little 

 trespassed upon, and so plants get a good chance 

 of growing and getting well-established ; and rail- 

 way gardens are formed, planted by nature, and 

 often furnished with plants that are unknown to 

 the immediate neighbourhood, and that are in 

 some cases rarities in the British flora — and these 

 are the railway gardens of which I wish to say 

 something. 



It is, indeed, marvellous how very soon the 

 bare, raw face of a railway cutting or embank- 

 ment will get fully clothed with plants. On the 

 Midland Railway, between Bath and Bristol, a 

 deep cutting showed a vast cliff of red sandstone 

 known to be of very great depth, and butting up 

 against it was a series of liassic formations of 

 various ages, such formations not lying horizontally, 

 but forming a succession of concavities lying one 

 upon another, and with the intervals filled with 

 liassic clays. It was easily seen, was visited by 

 many geologists, but only for a short time ; within 

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