The Music of the Marsh 



seem as if ice-chilled, each bank fringed with water 

 cress. 



The masses of flowers are made up of golden- 

 rod, aster, ironweed, Joe Pye-weed, milkweed, 

 swamp laurel, cardinal flower, turtlehead, and 

 daisies peeping wherever they can reach the light. 

 There are cone flowers, swamp sunflowers, every- 

 thing you know, and others the books fail to name, 

 among the vines and mosses especially; and all of 

 abnormal growth from the rich muck, warmth, and 

 the abundance of water. 



Although it is not so easy to attack the swamp 

 as the forest, on all sides man is pressing close. 

 Big ditches are being dredged, leading from the 

 marshes lying highest on the face of earth to lower 

 bodies of running water, so that the marsh level is 

 reduced by several feet, giving an unbelievable 

 amount of space that soon dries for cultivation. 

 I know of homes being built so close the marsh 

 that water rises in your footsteps between rows of 

 cultivated vegetables. Everywhere the marsh is 

 driven back, and as it recedes men hurry in with 

 garden truck first, and grain later. 



The character of wild growth changes as mois- 

 ture is removed. Mullein and thistle take the place 

 of flowers of damper habit. Because they are so 

 tall, so delicate, and of such clear, exquisite blue, 

 marsh lilies (Camassia fraseri] are conspicuous 

 above any. They grow where it is slightly high 

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