.78 
F. E. Clements. 
ecologist familiar with little else than natural forests, rarely 
changed except through fire or the hands of lumbermen. The 
control by man has been so long and continuous and the effect of 
grazing and of rodents so significant that one is inclined to suspect 
all comparisons with the virgin forest formations of America. The 
very fact that continuous stretches are rare further complicates 
the task. Naturally one finds many phenomena which he would 
interpret in terms of native vegetation, but this is gratuitous until 
further quantitative study has been made of the respective ages of 
different woody populations, the relative dominance of woodland, 
scrub and grassland, and the actual inter-relations between vegeta¬ 
tion and habitat. 
The problem of the moor, with its scientific, economic and 
practical aspects, appeals to the visitor as the outstanding problem 
of British vegetation. The divergent opinions among European 
botanists as to the nature of moor and its variations, of its 
relation on the one hand to swamp and fen, and on the other to 
heath, constitute a situation in which the American, unfamiliar 
with these formations, finds it impossible to discover definite land¬ 
marks. He realizes, however, that there is here an almost 
unparalleled opportunity for recording the movements from year 
to year, in addition to securing fundamental evidence by the 
methods of experimental vegetation. To one impressed with 
the complex relations between moor and heath, “Hochmoor” 
“ Flachmoor ” and fen, it seems that an exact study of all the 
factors and population changes for a long period will be necessary 
for a solution. The importance of doing this is greatly emphasized 
by the widespread opportunities for tracing the vegetation move¬ 
ments of the past in the almost innumerable peat sections. These 
serve as an invaluable link between the successions of to-day, and 
of the immediate geological past. It seems beyond question 
that their thorough study will reveal much of the development and 
structure of vegetation long since disappeared. British botany 
contains no more alluring field than this of correlating the peat 
deposits and connecting their successions with those in existence 
at present. 
It is, perhaps, not altogether idle to speculate in regard to the 
reclamation of the moors. Their wide extent and almost complete 
lack of use, mark them as an asset of great economic importance, 
and one must be allowed to indulge the hope that the British 
Vegetation Committee will soon take steps towards the conquest 
