OTHER WATER BORDERS 



that in his life to make him so. It is the 

 repose of the completely accepted instinct. 

 With the water runs a certain following 

 of thirsty herbs and shrubs. The willows 

 go as far as the stream goes, and a bit far- 

 ther on the slightest provocation. They 

 will strike root in the leak of a flume, or 

 the dribble of an overfull bank, coaxing 

 the water beyond its appointed bounds. 

 Given a new waterway in a barren land, 

 and in three years the willows have fringed 

 all its miles of banks ; three years more and 

 they will touch tops across it. It is perhaps 

 due to the early usurpation of the willows 

 that so little else finds growing-room along 

 the large canals. The birch beginning far 

 back in the canon tangles is more conser- 

 vative ; it is shy of man haunts and needs 

 to have the permanence of its drink assured. 

 It stops far short of the summer limit of 

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