Reclaiming a Salt Meadow 



Louis Fourteenth may construct a plea- Freakish 

 sure-ground like Versailles, by the aid of 

 forty millions and the genius of Lenotre, 

 in a few years ; but one who has not the 

 resources of an empire at command must 

 imitate more closely Nature's own deliber- 

 ate and tortuous methods, often seeing 

 the labor of years destroyed in a moment 

 by an unforeseen freak of the old dame, 

 who resents being interfered with, or find- 

 ing to his dismay that his own scheme 

 has been a mistaken one, and must be 

 revised. 



An illustrious townsman of ours started 

 like ourselves with a bit of salt meadow, 

 in which he laboriously constructed a 

 pond, spending his hours of ease from 

 the cares of state in building a wall about 

 it, to make a neat and appropriate curb. 

 But after this was accomplished, with 

 much trouble, it proved not to be at all 

 what he wanted, so that there was nothing 

 for it but to fill the hole, and with months 

 of labor bring the meadow into a smoothly 

 turfed field. 



Our day of repentance has not yet 

 dawned, but we have a fear that it lurks 



