154 FIELD MEETING AT SAUGUS. 



is seventy or eighty feet high, and produces an abun- 

 dance of fine nuts. Mr. Parker has steps built up to the 

 branches some fifteen feet above the ground, where there 

 is a seat which looks as if it might be enjoyable. 



17. Pontederia cordata {Pickerel Weed). 



18. Scirpus eriophorum {Wool Grass). Specimens were quite 



conspicuous in the several collections of wild flowers 

 gathered during the ramble. 



19. Zizania aquatica {Indian Rice) was very luxuriant on the 



banks of the mill stream. 



20. Muhlenbergia sylvatica {Drop Seed Grass) abundant in 



clamp woods. 



21. Lygodium palmatum {Climbing Fern). Locality doubtful. 



Prof. Herbert B. Adams, of Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity, Baltimore, followed with the paper of the day — on 

 the Commons and Commoners of Salem — commencing 

 with the remark, that Salem Common and the Great Pas- 

 tures of Salem are cases of historic survival. They are 

 bits of fossil history linking the communal life of New 

 England with the earliest beginnings of the Teutonic life. 

 Salem, and all our towns are but the reproduction of the 

 vilhige community system of the ancient Germans, as de- 

 scribed by Tacitus. He then gave a brief outline of this 

 system which, he said, was brought over to this country 

 by the invading Puritans, and was established at Salem 

 in all its completeness. He then confined his remarks 

 to the special subject, " the Commons and Commoners of 

 Salem," or Naumkeag as it was first called, but afterwards 

 took its present name to mark the era of peace to the 

 infant settlement, chosen as the site of a plantation by 

 Roger Conant and his companions. These pioneers came 

 hither from Cape Ann, because of the inviting meadows 

 and "the quantity of planting land," upon this "pleasant 

 and beautiful peninsula environed by an arm of the sea 

 on each side," as Hubbard says in his narrative, and laid 

 the foundation of the village of Salem. He presented a 



