In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterfilies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.
In the minor valleys, between the hillocks which diversified the contour of the vale, the fresh young ferns were luxuriantly growing up, ultimately to reach a height of five or six feet.
Around the nicest green meads, where the deer were playing in the grass, grew magnificent oaks and beeches; and if the bark of one of the trees was cracked, there grass and long creeping plants grew in the crevices.
But in the place of the once a mighty Amazon rainforest would likely be an extensive grassland region interspersed with occasional Woodlands similar to the climate of eastern central Africa like the Serengeti.
A 2001 study on Chicago found that buildings with high levels of vegetation had 48 percent fewer property crimes and 56 percent fewer violent crimes compared to buildings with low amounts of vegetation.
They now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the midst of a great meadow of poppies.
You couldn't find the front door because of the undergrowth, but we were determined from day one, and worked our way through the first phase of the restoration, which was the ground floor and the first floor.