SE£®-T!iiE AH© HARVEST. 
23 
the difference of climate. At all periods, 
climates must have set bounds to the dis¬ 
tribution of plants whose seeds Nature 
scatters even beyond the limits of the land 
that may be suited to them. 
It should follow, from all that has been 
stated, that those plants which are most 
easily distributed, and most capable of exist¬ 
ing under varied conditions, should prevail 
beyond $11 others over the world; which is 
indeed the fact, the grasses or cereals being 
more widely distributed than other plants. 
Many of our readers have probably ob¬ 
served that new plants appear on ground 
that has been cleared, though the original 
vegetation may have been for many rears 
in possession of the soil. At Woottou, in 
England, when beech-woods more than two 
hundred years old were destroyed by a 
storm, it was noticed that the birch soon 
grew thick on the cleared district. The 
birch-seed must have been there, biding its 
time. Darwin describes extensive heaths 
near Farnham, unplanted, save a few 
clumps of old Scotch firs. Parts of the 
heath were enclosed and immediately it 
became covered with self sown Scotch firs. 
The clumps had sown the seed, and the 
trees had been kept down by cattle till the 
enclosure took place and the cattle were 
fenced out. Darwin examined hundreds 
of acres of the unenclosed land; and, on 
looking closely between the stems of heath, 
he found a multitude of seediugs of Scotch 
fir and little trees, which the cattle contin¬ 
ually browsed down. In one square yard 
he counted thirty-two little trees, one hav¬ 
ing twenty-six rings of growth. Twenty- 
six years this dwarfed fir-tree had been 
eaten down by cattle. It waited still, bid¬ 
ing its time, which came as soon as the com¬ 
mon was enclosed. 
In all cases where a crop springs up, like 
the birch following the beach, or the fir- 
tree the heather, there are either young 
plants, or seeds already in the ground. 
The raspberry is a plant that waits long for 
its chance, and springs up and bears fruit 
the year following its release from the 
overbearing crop. It could not have borne 
fruit so soon from seed, and must have 
waited, like the little fir-trees, in a low 
form—not browsed by cattle, but over¬ 
shaded. In pastures a great variety of 
plants exist, besides those which form part 
of the bulk of the annual crop of hay. A 
scientific agriculturist can govern plants: 
he can make them appear suddenly by 
means of his charms, just as Prospero 
used to summon Ariel. The best grass and 
clovers of a starved pasture dwindle, and 
become mere shreds, in which condition 
they remain, overcrowded by a poorer 
vegetation, until good farming and ma¬ 
nuring bring them to the full maturity of 
their growth again. When this happens, 
the inferior herbage “natural” to the soil is 
“banished” in its turn, or, more strictly, 
it is crowded into obscurity to bide the 
time when the nobler species are once 
more starved out by stingy dressing. 
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