69 



culate how far we shall be able to proceed; the contiguous^ 

 and most promising parts, even in case of complete success, 

 will long give employment to our most spirited exertions. 



In my plan for improving heatluj mountains, I look no 

 farther than to their conversion from useless heath, to grassy 

 pasture of some value ; nor can this be deemed a hopeless 

 scheme, as we often see green mountain pasture mixed 

 with the heathy, and often, even of more considerable 

 elevation. 



Our task is then to investigate the cause, — why nature 

 in the one case prefers a vegetable useless to man, or his 

 cattle ; and in other cases, at the same, or a greater altitude, 

 throws up grassy produce of considerable value ; — and to 

 inquire, can we operate upon the surface so as to make the 

 soil a more favourable matrix for the gramina, and a less 

 favourable one to the heath? 



In my former chapter, T have gone sufficiently into the 

 subject of the grasses which we mean to encourage, and 

 shall now proceed to the natural history of Heath, whose 

 extermination is our object. 



In addition to the power which Heath possesses of sus- 

 taining the severities of great elevation, it seems endowed 

 by nature with another important property, that of bearing 

 with much wet, and also with the alternations of drought and 

 moisture. From the latter, it is adapted to a pieaty^ soil, 

 whose open spongy texture exposes it to such alternations ; 

 and thus we find it nearly in exclusive possession of such 

 soils at all elevations. Heath is also a species of timber, 

 a tree in miniature ; its solid woody texture requiring years 

 to attain their full growth, and totally different from the 

 succulent vegetables, which, whether annuals or perennials, 

 lose in the winter, the whole groivth andybrm they have ac- 

 quired in summer. 



