46 MIDDLESEX SOCIETY. 



antly laden with fruit, — by extensive fields of corn, — and by 

 numerous reclaimed meadows. The contrast between the present 

 appearance of these meadows and that which they exhibited a 

 few years ago, must strike with admiration every beholder who 

 has an eye susceptible of the attractions of beauty, and a mind 

 capable of estimating the worth of useful improvement. 



Some of the meadows which were entered for a premium 

 have been, within the knowledge of some of the members of the 

 committee, mere swamps and quagmires, in which frogs, serpents, 

 and turtles, had held a life estate from generation to generation. 

 The only vegetable productions were alders and ferns, inter- 

 spersed with bogs, and decorated here and there with a few 

 cat-tails, on which a bob-o-link might be tempted to alight to 

 enjoy a moment's interval of silence. From these same swamps, 

 also, were wont to issue hordes of gnats and mosquitoes, like 

 the Goths and Vandals of a former age, to war upon civilized 

 humanity. Those once unsightly swamps are now covered 

 with grass, and afford exuberant crops of hay, for the support 

 of domestic animals. Although the Committee would be sorry 

 to give occasion for a suspicion that they are deficient in the 

 milk of human kindness, and they flatter themselves that they 

 have as natural an aversion to war as the most enthusiastic 

 members of the Peace Society, yet they cannot refrain from 

 expressing their approbation of the industry and skill which had 

 enabled the proprietors of these swamps to extirpate the aborig- 

 inal tribes of reptiles and insects, which, for aught we know to 

 the contrary, had held undisputed possession thereof, from the 

 day when Noah, with his family of creeping and flying things, 

 emerged from the Ark. The Committee profess to be strict con- 

 servatives in principle, and have great regard for "vested 

 rights;" yet they witnessed, with unmingled delight, certain 

 demonstrations of radicalism, in the uprooting of thorns and 

 brambles, and an apparent determination to eradicate the dog- 

 wood and ivy, and all their relations. 



The Committee perceived, also, that the levelling principle 

 pervaded the whole community of husbandmen, to an extent 

 that is quite alarming to those who think it wrong to disturb the 

 naturally undulating scenery of barren, gravelly knolls, and 



