On Salt Marsh. 281 



first year after a bank is finished, before the meadow is 

 thoroughly drained to the ditches, the native grasses 

 grow very high ; — they afterwards diminish till they die 

 out entirely. In the second spring, the meadow will 

 be, according to its tenacity, covered with fresh weeds, 

 more or less, such as butter weeds, lamb quarters, marsh 

 elder, and a variety of plants, affording for a short time 

 excellent pasture, especially for sheep. They grow spon- 

 taneously, as at the beginning of the world ; when, ac- 

 cording to Ovid, 



" The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough, 

 " And unprovok'd did -fruitful stores allow." 



Dri/dw's Trcrns. 1 B. Metam. 



The fact so remarkable, is difficult to be accounted 

 for in this new creation, just raised above the waters, 

 and often two miles distant from fast land. I have sup- 

 posed that the seeds were floated and deposited with the 

 mud, at the formation of the marsh ; and that they re- 

 mained inert till the sun brought them to life — his rays 

 having been obstructed by the water, before the bank ex- 

 cluded it. Or, the weeds may have been produced from 

 an invisible germ, soon after the mud became exposed to 

 the sun. This opinion may receive some confirmation 

 from the first chapter of Genesis. — " And the earth 

 brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, 

 and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after 

 his kind." Those weeds, together with the remaining 

 salt and sedge grass, should be burnt previous to sowing 

 with grain ; and a time should be waited for, when, after 

 a rain, the moisture is not so great as to prevent the 

 flames from spreading through the herbage, and yet suf- 



2X 



