IN THE PONKAPOAG BOGS 



labor cut and tore away the marsh- 

 grass roots the cedars planted their 

 seeds, and called upon the alders and the 

 swamp maples and the thoroughwort, the 

 Joe Pye weed, and a host of other good 

 citizens of the swamp, to help them. 



So vigorous was the sortie and so 

 well did they hold their ground that you 

 may trace the farmer's wide ditch to- 

 day only as a causeway down which the 

 swamp has come to build a great 

 wooded area in the midst of the bog, 

 accomplishing in half a century what it 

 might not have done in five times that 

 had it not been for human aid. Thus, 

 slowly as you and I count time, only an 

 inch or two a year perhaps, yet all too 

 rapidly for the joy of future genera- 

 tions, the bog encroaches upon the pond 

 and the swamp follows towards com- 

 plete possession, which as the centuries 

 141 



