On the subject of vegetation there is evidence in support
of a native fear that bracken is steadily and not very slowly invading a wide acreage. It is a fern of beauty ; but its presence is not good for man or beast. It destroys feeding ground for beast whether wild or domestic—there is such a thing as " fern sickness " among animal ailments—and more disastrously it harbours the creatures that are most ruinous to the health of sheep. Its rapid advance is, I suppose, due to the want of cutting that has followed the fall in population ; but certain plants seem to have bouts of pro- sperity, not always easy to explain. The wild clematis, or old man's beard, has recently taken summary possession of wide areas. It has increased on the northern seaboard of the Isle of Wight as on the dumps of the Home Counties or the commons of Gloucestershire. It has won supremacy in hedgerows like the mimulus along the banks of our brooks.
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