Reclaiming a Salt Meadow 



only objection being that it was so palata- 

 ble that the horses ate up their mattress 

 before breakfast every morning. 



After the causeway was constructed 

 across the wet ground behind the stable 

 to Winter Street, there did not seem very 

 much reason for meddling further with 

 the marsh, but given a gravel-bank at one 

 end of a farm, and a swamp at the other, 

 and you may depend upon it there will be 

 a marriage between them at no very dis- 

 tant date. 



The intercourse between the two of our Tht km 

 acquaintance, once begun, was seldom in- ^Ju- 

 terrupted ; the more the meadow saw of u 

 the hill the more it wanted to see, and, 

 with a perversity only to be found in mea- 

 dows, the more it was given the more it 

 wanted of the same kind. 



At first it seemed as if a few cartloads 

 of stones dumped in the lowest parts, 

 where the water stood longest, would be 

 all-sufficient, but the amount of material 

 that this anaconda of a marsh can stow 

 away is, to use the slang of the day, phe- 

 nomenal. 



Piles of stones, rubbish, sand, boughs, 

 127 



