FLOWAGE OF MEADOWS. 405 



always sure to get something choice in the way of stock hay. 

 It was known far and wide under the name of "pipes," and 

 was said to be so nutritive and so greatly relished by cattle, 

 that they would instantly stop their chewing of the best of 

 English hay whenever they heard the well-known rustle of 

 "pipes" upon the mow and wait till it was pitched down within 

 their reach. Oxen were easily fattened upon it. Working 

 cattle gained new strength in feeding on "pipes." Milch cows 

 also throve upon it. In those days the great fattening ground 

 for our local market was along this beautiful valley. It was 

 noted in those days as the Connecticut Valley has since 

 become. Young cattle were raised there by the thousand. 



The "pipes" have now disappeared from these once fertile 

 meadows, and their produce has deteriorated and sunk to the 

 level of that of common wet bogs. They are no longer 

 accessible to teams. Lands that were quick of sale at a 

 hundred dollars an acre and more, a century ago, will hardly 

 now command five. The "Ministerial Lots," which easily 

 brought a rental of sixty or seventy dollars a year, sank to 

 fifteen, ten and five, till lost to sight, though still, perhaps, 

 here and there to memory dear. 



This vast tract of fertile meadow land, seventy-five years 

 ago, had an actual market value of more than a million of 

 dollars ; but to the happy dwellers along the river, as a con- 

 stituent part of their system of husbandry, it was worth vastly 

 more. It required no labor except the joyous one of gathering 

 the rich harvest. It required no fencing, no manuring, no 

 toilsome working with the plough. Its bounty was sure as 

 the year was to come round. It was, as they thought, a safe 

 and sure and rich legacy to children and to grand-children. 



The Concord River is formed by the junction of the Sudbury 

 and the Assabet. The Sudbury rises in Westborough, in 

 a vast swamp lying in the easterly part of the town. A large, 

 shallow pond in Hopkinton, above Woodville, also has its 

 outlet through this swamp, and so out through the little 

 stream which runs easterly through Ashland to Framingham, 

 and thence a little east of north through the town of Wayland, 

 along the east line of Sudbury and the west line of Lincoln, 

 into Concord, where it joins the Assabet. The Assabet 

 River rises also in the westerly part of Westborough, and 



