gundalows ferried the hay up 

 every salt creek to the home 

 farm. On such provender thou- 

 sands of cattle and horses were 

 wintered e\/ery year. The 

 resulting manure, supplemented 

 where possible from other 

 sources, nourished merchantable 

 crops of corn, potatoes, tobacco, 

 flax, onions and other produce." 



Staddles and gundalows (gondola) 

 were still in use in Maine where they 

 were photographed in the late 1800's 

 (Figure 23). Moreover, the value of 

 the high marsh black grass ( Juncus 

 qerardi ) had been discovered, and this 

 species was also being harvested 

 (Russell 1976): 



"Salt hay from the thousands of 

 acres of coastal marshes retained 

 its importance. This 'harvest of 

 the sea' actually improved in 

 quality, as the nutritious 'black 

 grass,' good fodder even for 

 milkers, spread more widely. 

 Black grass, cutting about a ton 

 per acre, made up half the crop 

 along Massachusetts Bay's North 

 Shore." 



The continuing importance of salt 

 hay through the 1800 's is reflected in 

 its inclusion in the agricultural 

 census data for the New England 

 States. For example, in 1875 farmers 

 in Rhode Island cut 1,717 tons of salt 

 hay from 2,506 acres of marsh, for an 

 average yield of 0.7 tons/acre or 

 160 g/m2 (Anonymous 1867). The yield 

 was comparable to conventional hay 

 fields at the time, but low, relative 

 to modern measurements of the 

 production of high marsh vegetation 

 (see Table 10). Some of this 

 discrepancy may be due to differences 

 in harvest technique, or because salt 

 hay was usually harvested early in the 

 season, before it bent over and formed 

 a mat that was hard to cut (Kavenagh 

 1980). Even by 1875, the value of 

 salt hay harvested in Rhode Island 



50 



was only $16,000 compared with a 

 seaweed fertilizer harvest (from 

 drift on the beaches) of $60,000 and 

 a marine fishery of almost $450,000. 

 The importance of salt hay declined 

 along with the fortunes of New England 

 farming as agriculture moved west. 



CHANGES IN THE AMOUNT OF HIGH MARSH 



For a time, the attraction of 

 salt hay may have drawn some coastal 

 farmers to try to increase the acreage 

 of high marsh. In his 1748 Essays 

 upon Field Husbandry in New England , 

 Jared Eliot (1748) described his 

 successful effort to convert a "wholly 

 unprofitable" low-lying piece of swamp 

 into a salt mieadow, and suggested that 

 others might do the same since he had 

 seen "sundry such places upon the Sea 

 Coast. " 



"Last Fall I began upon it and 

 drew [dug] a Ditch of four Foot 

 wide from a large Salt Creek, and 

 carried it up in the middle of 

 the Cove seventy Rods, in order 

 to turn it into Salt Meadow, that 

 being the best that I could do 

 with it: It so far answers the 

 design, that the Tide flows 

 regularly into it, to the upper 

 end of it; the Tide now flowing, 

 where I suppose it never reach 'd 

 before. " 



It seems impossible to determine 

 how much high salt marsh might have 

 been created in this way, but it must 

 have been a wery small amount. The 

 more common procedure was for farmers 

 to dike the marshes in an attempt to 

 convert them to fresh meadow or with 

 the hope of draining them for growing 

 traditional crops. 



The expanding maritime economy of 

 New England during the 17C0's an'd the 

 impact of the industrial revolution 

 during the 1800's must have resulted 

 in more widespread filling of coastal 

 marshes, particularly in southern 



