THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



131 



only, from the colder and temperate regions to those 

 within the tropics. It may be regarded as the represen- 

 tative of those of its group by means of which some of 

 the most marked physical changes have been effected. 

 The broad foliage, and tall, upright stems, the latter 

 crowned during tlie summer with large, loose, and 

 gracefully. drooping bunches of purplish-brown flowers, 

 that, eventually, as the seed ripens, resemble tassels of 

 glossy silk, are objects too common to escape notice. 

 This is the largest of Ihe British grasses, attaining the 

 height of six or eight, or sometimes even ten feet, and 

 may occasionally be seen overgrowing extensive tracts, 

 called reed-ronds by the inhabitants of the eastern coun- 

 ties of England. Such tracts having been originally 

 pools or lakes, gradually filled up at first by the growth 

 of confervcc, mouses, and other plants of low or- 

 ganization, until the water became sufficiently shallow 

 to admit of the reed spreading over the whole, its creep- 

 ing stems penetrating the soft mud below, as those 

 of the mat-grass do the loose sand. When, after 

 the lapse of a period of years, varying and inde- 

 finite, according to circumstances, the bottom becomes 

 consolidated and raised, and evaporation or drainage 

 more rapidly effected; the reeds die, and a vast accumu- 

 lation of vegetable matter becomes subservient to a 

 growth more valuable : the stagnant pool or unwhole- 

 some swamp is ready for the pasture, the corn-field, and 

 the garden. 



The extent to which such changes are capable of being 

 induced is not readily appreciable in a cultivated country 

 like our own ; but amid the trackless morasses and 

 widely inundated lands in some purts of the world, the 

 offices of the reeds and their brethren are among the 

 most marked sources of superficial change and prepara- 

 tion that our earth is constantly undergoing. They are 

 indeed land-formers and land-fixers and colonizers on a 

 scale as grand and universal as that of the sand-binders. 



The reed grasses are little less valuable in the pre- 

 servation of land than they are in contributing to its 

 formation. We observe them growing abundantly on 

 the borders of rivers, where, while tending to encroach 

 upon the bed of the stream, they at the same time bind 

 its banks with their interlacing creeping stems and 

 roots, and prevent them from being worn away by the 

 action of the water ; thus guarding the low lands on 

 either side against the liability to iiiundalion. The 

 banks of the Thames and olher English rivers are for- 

 tified in this manner, and much of the arable and pasture 

 land, now composing the valUys along which they flow, 

 has been formed by the gradual contraction of their 

 channels through the growth of these grass barriers. 



The reed grass is only one among a large number be- 

 longing to the grass family concerned in the fulfilment 

 of these important offices, and especially in that of the 

 conversion of water into land. Many species, consti- 

 tuting the principal vegetation of low, moist meadows, 

 occasionally liable to be overflowed by a neighbouring 

 river, or to lie under water in wet seasons or during winter, 

 but in summer yielding valuable pasturage or copious 

 crops of fodder, find their home equally on the imme- 

 diate borders of streams and lakes. Such are the 

 GljjcericE, or sweet grasses, especially our Glyceria 

 fluitans, and GUjceria aquatica ; the latter a very 

 common grass in the fens or swampy lands of Cam- 

 bridgeshire and Lincolnshire, where it is said to be 

 sometimes cut for hay three times in one season. 

 It is a plant of much weaker growth and habit 

 than the reed, with more succulent stems and 

 foliage, grateful and nourishing to cattle both in 

 the green and dried states. When it vegetates on 

 the sides of the ditches and pools, these stems spread 

 out and speedily fill up comparatively deep water, and 

 become a formidable evil even in slow rivers, the navi- 



gation of which would be soon interrupted unless their 

 increase were checked by artificial means. In the dis- 

 tricts above mentioned, the rivers and ditches arc frf« 

 quently cleaned out, and the former are kept open by 

 tbe use of an instrument termed a bear, which is an 

 iron roller with a number of pieces of iron, like small 

 spades, fixed into it ; this is drawn up and down the 

 river by horses walking along the bank, and tears up 

 the off'ending plants by the roots, which thus rise to the 

 surface, and are floated down the stream. 



When we reflect upon the vast portions of the earth's 

 surface that have undergone the change from water to 

 land, the valuable ministry of these aquatic grasses in 

 producing such effict becomes evident. Da Luc, in the 

 course of his travels in the north of Germany, remark- 

 ing upon the formation of peat, describes the manner in 

 which the common reed is instrumental in altering the 

 face of the country, as well as the several stages of pro- 

 gress with which its growth is associated, and I quote his 

 observations as accordant with my own elsewhere. In the 

 survey which he made of Brandenburg, Brunswick, and 

 other districts in their vicinity, he found the bottom of 

 every dale a meadow on a subsoil of peat. Many of 

 these meadows had, in the recollection of old people, a 

 pool of water ia the middle of them ; while in others 

 lakes or pools existed at the time of his visit, the ulti- 

 mate filling up of which seemed to be insured by the 

 causes in action. The sandy sediment carried into the 

 lake by streams or during rain gradually raises its bot- 

 tom near the shore ; the consequence of this is the 

 growth of the common reed, which advances forward 

 into the shallow water, and leads the van of progress- 

 Tracing from the zone of reeds backward from the clear 

 water, another zone extends of aquatic plants which 

 vegetate nearer the surface, and rise less above it; ou 

 the outer part of this, confervas surround the plants like 

 green clouds, and almost conceal the fluid in which they 

 grow. These latter form a bed in which sjjluigmun (bog- 

 moss) vegetates and renders the surface more compact. 

 Beyond, still farther towards the firm land, the sphagnum 

 becomes mingled with various marsh plants of the 

 flowering kind, and even some of the meadow grasses 

 that prefer a moist soil : thus commences a zone on 

 which cattle may occasionally pasture during the 

 droughts of summer. A little beyond this the ground 

 becomes more and more solid ; hay may be made upon 

 it in the summer months ; it is the last stage of pro- 

 gress between the swamp and the meadow, soon des- 

 tined to become indistinguishable from the latter. 



All of these zones are successively changing character 

 as the reeds advance and leave new zones behind them 

 on the places they abandon. The process of land- 

 forming is more or less rapid according to the depth of 

 the water. It is often checked for indefinite periods 

 where the reeds, which cannot advance beyond a certain 

 depth, approach the brow of a steep declivity under 

 water. But in lakes of comparatively small depth and 

 uniform bottom, and in which the sandy or muddy 

 sediments are advancing all around, the reeds, forming 

 a ring gradually contracting in circumference, meet in 

 the centre, and afterwards disappearing, in proportion 

 to ihe rise of the watery soil in which they vegetate, an 

 uninterrupted expanse of meadow occupies the site of 

 the former lake. 



In some meadow land thus circumstanced, attempts 

 have been made, either for ornament or use, to main- 

 tain a piece of water; but the attempt is vain, unless 

 supported by continued labour and expense. The reeds 

 and other aquatic grasses, with their equally active co- 

 adjutors and successors, soon occupy the space, in obe- 

 dience to the natural law, for the fulfilment of which 

 they were created. 



Such is the process (observes our naturalist, in con« 



