88 
THE FLORIST'S JOURNAL. 
plants ; and when one passes from the clay to the crag sand, or 
the gravel, or from either of the latter to the other, the differ¬ 
ence of the prevailing surface vegetation is equivalent to that of 
several degrees of latitude. The clay is most abundant in 
grasses ; and if the water stagnates, those grasses run coarse ; the 
gravel is the most flowery, though even it has little to boast of in 
this respect; and upon the crag sand vegetation of any kind is 
but scanty. 
As we proceed northward in England, and strata below the 
chalk form the surface soil, the plants upon each different soil are 
of a different character. If that soil contains a large proportion 
of iron, it is unfavourable to the growth of surface-vegetation of 
any kind, and especially so for the more delicate flowers and 
flowering shrubs. Thus we have frequently heard that in 
Northamptonshire a meadow is long in coming to anything like 
perfection, but that when it does, it is equally retentive of its 
good qualities, for which reasons a Northamptonshire farmer is 
very chary in breaking up his bit of ground. M e have also 
heard that the common moss-rose cannot be preserved for any 
length of time in Northamptonshire, and that the white variety 
cannot be made to flower at all. Much of this is no doubt owing 
to the soil, but something too must be attributed to the atmo¬ 
sphere. 
The geology of plants is, however, a long, varied, and very 
complicated subject; and the data for the investigation of it are 
far from being complete;—chiefly because geologists are not 
botanists, nor botanists geologists,—so that the labours of the 
one throw but little light on those of the other. For the reasons 
stated, it is obvious that we cannot enter into any of the minutiae ; 
and besides, the examination of even one department of the com¬ 
pound science would occupy not only many papers but many 
numbers of our work, to the exclusion of more appropriate 
matter. Therefore we shall conclude this paper by a very fevr 
observations on those native plants which have been cultivated 
for the sake of their flowers. When we examine them in their 
natural state, we invariably find them on soils, if not in situations 
bearing a strong resemblance to those of our cultivated grounds. 
The Pansy is the only florist’s flower which has been cultivated 
out of a wild British one ; and we are not absolutely certain as to 
some varieties even of it. Now the Pansy, though it grows on 
