336 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tide, carries but from two to three feet of water. The bed 

 of the river is represented to have a fall of five feet or 

 more from the western termination of the marshes towards 

 the dike. 



Among the first plants noticed upon the marshes, before 

 the latter was built, was samphire (Salicornia herbacea) ; 

 then followed sea spear-grass (Ghjceria maritima, Wahl., or 

 Poa maritima, Huds.). The borders of creeks and other low 

 places were usually found covered with coarse sedges (Carex 

 species) and rushes (Juncus species). The more elevated 

 margins of the marsh-meadows showed occasionally small 

 patches of June-grass (Poa pratensis) , blue-grass (Poa com- 

 pressa), wild foxtail' (Alopecurus aristulatus) and so-called 

 black-grass (Juncus bulbosus, Juncus Gerardi, Loisel.). As 

 long as the tide had full access, a large portion of these 

 grasses were killed almost every year by frost, — a circum- 

 stance which, to some degree, explains the absence of a con- 

 tinuous sod. The grass growing upon the marginal meadows 

 was worth, at the period alluded to, about $2 per acre. The 

 interior meadows have hardly paid for mowing. Several 

 hundreds of acres of the latter had not been mowed for sev- 

 eral years previous to the construction of the dike. The first 

 grass was sown, by throwing the seed simply over the sur- 

 face, during the month of April, in 1873. The locality selected 

 for that purpose was situated in the interior of the marsh- 

 meadows, and comprised about twenty acres of redtop 

 (Agrostis vulgaris, With.) and fifteen acres of timothy 

 (Phleum pratense, L.). A new grass, commonly called 

 meadow fescue (Festuca elatior, L., variety of F. pratensis) , 

 spontaneously made its appearance during the same year. It 

 was of a rank growth, and furnished hay at the rate of two 

 tons per acre. 



I have visited, twice during the past season, these salt 

 marshes, and also some of the reclaimed salt meadows near 

 Newark, New Jersey. A short sketch of the observations 

 made on those occasions forms the contents of a few subse- 

 quent pages. 



My first visit to the Green Harbor River salt marshes took 

 place on the 14th of April,— at a time, therefore, when the 

 new vegetation had not yet made its appearance upon the 



