difficulties it was a noteworthy 

 accomplishment of New England and 

 the Middle Colonies in the 

 seventeenth century to have 

 become not only independent of 

 outside sources of supply, but 

 even to have developed a surplus 

 of cattle, horses, and meat 

 products for export." 



The use of salt-marsh hay contri- 

 buted substantially to this success 

 and helped to determine the pattern 

 of settlem^ent along the New England 

 coast. In describing the history of 

 New England agriculture, "Russell 

 (1976) has shown that the presence of 

 fresh and salt hay marshes was a major 

 factor in site selection of many towns 

 settled before 1650 (Figure 22). As 

 he described it: 



"All along the winding Massa- 

 chusetts Bay shore, wherever 

 salt grass caught the eye, 

 exploring stockmen were petition- 

 ing the General Court to be 

 allowed to set up new townships. 

 The adjoining upland might be 

 only moderately fertile, even 

 chiefly ledges and woods, yet 

 cattlemen brought up amid 

 England's grassy vales and tidal 

 marshes coveted the salt hay 

 in the lowlands. In Plymouth 

 Colony the same magnet drew 

 ambitious men toward new loca- 

 tions. Reluctantly the Plymouth 

 authorities permitted their 

 neighbors to leave the close-knit 

 mother town and its scant fertil- 

 ity and set up new and distant 

 farmsteads beside inviting hay 

 lands. Duxbury, Green Harbor 

 (Marshfield), and Hingham, their 

 tidal marshes rich in salt hay, 

 drew planters northward. The 

 miles of green salt meadow on the 

 Cape Cod shore and Indian fields 

 there open for tillage beckoned 

 still others to plant Sandwich, 

 Barnstable, and Yarmouth, and to 



move inland to Taunton at the 

 head of Fit. Hope Bay. " 



On Long Island, and perhaps in 

 other areas as well, the "salt 

 meadows" were owned by the town and 

 the right to mow and carry off the hay 

 was auctioned off early in the spring 

 of each year (Kavenagh 1980). The 

 same practice probably applied to 

 "thatch grass" or S. alterniflora . It 

 is hard to know if this species was 

 really used as thatch or as feed, 

 bedding, or something else. Present- 

 day farmers I have interviewed never 

 recall any use for it, and Kavenagh 

 (1980) concluded that it was probably 

 not used for roofing: 



"Very early in the colonial 

 experience in both Plymouth and 

 Boston the colonists found to 

 their sorrow that thatch grass 

 for roofing quickly dried in this 

 climate, in contrast to Old 

 England with its more moist 

 climate and ability to keep the 

 outer grass damp and less 

 fire-prone. Here wood and miud 

 chimneys caught fire easily, 

 sparks flew, and a dried thatch 

 roof did not last very long. 

 Ordinances were soon passed to 

 prohibit them. " 



By 1700, "English grasses" had 

 been introduced and spread throughout 

 New England for pasture (Bidwell and 

 Falconer 1925), but salt-marsh hay 

 continued to be used in large quantity 

 throughout the coastal region until 

 the early 1900's. Russell (1976) 

 described the situation as it was in 

 the late 1700's: 



"Countless staddles (wood under- 

 pinning) for salt hay still 

 dotted seacoast marshes from 

 southern Maine to Cape Cod, 

 along the shores of the Sound, 

 and up the Connecticut and 

 similar estuaries. In the fall. 



48 



