WILD PASTURES 



wells more silently, and the decayed 

 vegetation of centuries has made a mud 

 bank over the quicksand. You may 

 sink to the knee here and find bottom. 

 A few steps farther on you may drive a 

 twenty-foot pole down through mud 

 and sand and find nothing to obstruct it. 

 Yet Nature always provides the 

 remedy. Mosses and swamp grass 

 have grown on the surface of this 

 liquid mud and alders and swamp 

 maple have rooted in these and encour- 

 aged wild rose and elder and many 

 another shrub, till their intertwined 

 roots have formed a surface which is 

 in part safe to the foot. And here is a 

 world of itself in this hidden pasture 

 corner, for here linger the trout and 

 the watercress, and many another shy 

 woodland thing, driven to bay by the en- 

 croachments of surrounding civilization. 

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