THE VEGETATION OF MOXTAUK 1 3 



the distribution of grassland and forest at Montauk, there may well have 

 been much greater areas of forest in pre-nistoric days. Further details 

 of this will be found in the summary. 



Not only the disturbance of the vegetation in the seventeenth and 

 eighteenth centuries, and the grazing which has continued ever since (now 

 much reduced in volume from what it was during the Revolution) but 

 still another upheaval of the vegetation occurred during tie Spanish- 

 American war in 1898. At that time thousand of troops were quartered 

 there and practically all the land between Fort and Great Pond was covered 

 with troops and their equipment. It was also used as an aviation station 

 during the Great War, but, so far as disturbance of the vegetation is con- 

 cerned, on a much reduced scale. During 1921 and 1922, however, part 

 of the area east of Fort Pond was used as a training ground for artillery 

 regiments, whose manoeuvering and shooting destroyed large tracts of the 

 Downs vegetation. 



Montauk is a region, then, that has been through many phases in the 

 disturbance of its vegetation, and in interruptions to the natural fulfillment 

 of its vegetative destiny. This.as now going on, in some places rapidly, 

 and in others hardly at all, as the sequel will attempt to show. One inter- 

 esting fact about the vegetation of the whole Point, in spite of all these 

 disturbances, is the comparative scarcity of weeds of introduction, which 

 are noticeably fewer than in other parts of the Island. This is due to their 

 failure, with one or two exceptions, to compete with the wild vegetation, 

 which over great areas of the Point, consists of singularly close-knit, so- 

 called 'closed' associations, and to the minute fraction of the Point now 

 under cultivation, scarcely ten acres. 



From what has preceded it would appear that the present vegetation of 

 Montauk is to be viewed as exhibiting various stages in the development 

 or perhaps replacement of forest covering as that is possible on the open 

 downs, and in the face of environmental conditions to be considered later. 

 The wind, the lack of moisture on the upper part of the downs, its presence 

 close to the surface in many kettleholes, — all these play a part in deter- 

 mining the rapidity and the type of this process. 



Several well marked types of vegetation are to be seen there now, and a 

 description of these, with some notes on their probable position in the 

 scheme will be given in the following account of "The Downs," "The 

 Kettleholes," "The Hither Woods," and the "Region East of Great Pond." 



These four have been selected because in them are to be found ecological 

 problems, that are probably of more interest than anything else on Long 

 Island. In them are well illustrated the all but world wide conflict of 



