1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



663 



For the New England Farmer. 

 THE DITTY OF THE MEADOW-OWUERS. 



BY R. F. FULLER. 



The Muse, that, in Italian climes, 

 Loved yeomen of the olden times. 

 Lent Georgics her poetic charms, 

 To teach the management of farms. 

 And framed with sliill the sweetest lays, 

 The lives of husbandmen to praise — 

 Think not, that she has ceased to care, 

 In modern times, how farmers fare ! 

 No ! to her first love she returned ; 

 And with rekindled ardor burned 

 Her ancient fiame of Arcady, 

 Roused by the wrongs of Sudbury, 

 Wa'yland and Weston, Concord, Stow, 

 And all the towns, where waters flow, 

 Or w^ould flow, of the river, which 

 Is dammed to make a few men rich — 

 A few men rich ; but, I am sure. 

 For one made ri-h, a thousand poor! 

 Althou;;h years back the evil date, 

 She only heard of it, of late : 

 For other th'jmes she thought upon. 

 And dwelt afar, in Helicon. 

 I happened in, as they were telling 

 The story, by her fountain wel ing. 

 Moved by the wrongs, which they recount, 

 A tear she dropped into the fount ; 

 To tinge with sadness every lay, 

 Until these wrongs are done away ! 



Thus went the story : — You must know, 

 The Concord has a feeble flow ; 

 Yet, God designed that sluggish river 

 To be of fruitfulness the giver. 

 Alluvial acres he had spread. 

 Ten thousand by the river bed ; 

 Which, like the Nile, at periods, 

 In fall and spring, the river floods. 

 And with deposit richly feeds ; 

 The field no plow nor dressing needs. 

 Nor other labor, but to mow 

 The rich crops, on the meadow grow. 

 The river, though its stream was dull 

 And level with the banks, when full, 

 Well served the purpose, planned by God, 

 Nor in the summer overflowed ; 

 Unless, indeed, in those events, 

 Which loose awhile the elements: 

 Yet such the sad exceptions were, 

 Which in the best of rules occur. 



This stream a corporation saw. 

 And planned to bind it by a law ; 

 Cared not for meadows, where it ran, 

 And pitied not the hi^sbandman. 

 Who fall a hundred fold must lose 

 The gain, that by a dam accrues. 

 Such bodies self alone controls ; 

 For corporations have no souls. 

 They cared not for the farmers hay. 

 If they could dodge the loss to pay ; 

 Though stagnant waters injure health, 

 They cared not for the Commonwealth. 

 — Well ! what, some seventy years ago, 

 Should this same corporation do ? 

 The Assembled Wisdom they persuade, 

 Anxious to manufacturers aid, 

 A bill to sanction as a law, 

 Which their own cunning lawyers draw. 

 The honest farmers never dream. 

 Of what is plotting for the stream. 

 Plain people, who no mischief plan, 

 Expect none from their fellow-man. 

 Long had the act passed, ere a word 

 The farmers of the charter heard. 

 Not half the General Court, indeed, 

 Had noticed how its sections read: 

 Especially one clause so sly. 

 Expressed in few, to 'scape the eye ; 

 Which claims for damages they did, 

 To one year after limited. 

 Without the remedy the law 

 Of mill acts has provided for. 

 The corporation lawyers knew 

 That not in one year. If in two. 

 The injury the dam had done, 

 To half the farmers would be known ; 

 The sluice-ways could be managed so 

 A year to let the waters flow ; 

 While farmers, for redress, by law 

 Of mill acts, would be looking for. 



But the big wigs grew still more bold. 

 Well fed with corporation gold j 



And, still more surely to avoid 

 All recompense, their wits employed. 

 Another act they lobbied through ; 

 The court abolished, where to sue ; 

 And in a state of nature left 

 Farmers, of remedy bereft. 

 The yeomen, by and by, awal;e ; 

 The tl ing begin in hand to take ; 

 Seek the remaining courts, and try 

 To find in law a remedy. 

 Their meadows ruined by the flood, 

 They thought their case was surely good. 

 The .Judges long deliberated. 

 While in the flood the farmers waited. 

 At length the courts of law decided. 

 No remedy the law provided. 

 With wonder this the farmers saw- 

 Why, surely justice must be law ! 

 Or, if not law, in equity 

 They surely have a remedy. 

 The evil is too bad to bear ; 

 Redress there surely is, somewhere. 

 So they endure the law's delay: 

 Suit after suit get under way ; 

 Pay well the lawyers, then court cost — 

 For evtry suit at last is lost ! 

 Thus, years and years, at law they tried 

 To get redress, and were denied. 

 And, every year, the damage grew; 

 For which they never got a sou. 

 Yet they refrained, the dam by force 

 To clear from out the water course. 

 Right wonderful their patience was. 

 Thus outlawed by the worst of laws ! 



For years, the farmers bore the curse ; 

 Which, every year, grew worse and worse. 

 Another corporation huge, 

 To keep up always this deluge. 

 Two reservoirs had added on. 

 At Marlborough and Hopkinton ; 

 From whence, whenever summer would, 

 In pity, dry the wasting flood. 

 The reinforcing waters came, 

 At signal sent up from the dam. 

 At length, a rumor vague was heard ; 

 Like that, in ancient days, absurd. 

 Which published once that Pan was dead. 

 Now this same wandering rumor said, 

 Not Pan, nor any other devil. 

 But one, whose life had done us evil, 

 The corporation which had built 

 The dam, the forfeit of Us guilt 

 Had paid. Death was cot cheated, aa 

 The damaged meadow-owner was ! 

 'Tis said, at every death, one birth 

 Or more fills up the place on earth : 

 And now, new hopes to being start, 

 In every meadow-owner's heart. 

 Since his oppressor is no more, 

 Relief must be for him in store. 



Did the old tyrant make a will. 

 For posthumous oppression, still? 

 Or did he make, what lawyers all 

 Donatio causa mo tis call ? 

 It was an anxious question, whether 

 The dam and builder died together. 

 We searched the registry ; and read 

 The corporation's only deed ; 

 Which, while expecting its decease. 

 Doth all its property release. 

 Expressly saving, in a clause, 

 All rights derived from special laws. 

 O ! joy to meadow-owners ! Thus 

 They get no right to injure us ! 

 Now, o'er the corporation old, 

 The Court Supreme grand inquest hold. 

 Peace to its ashes they decreed. 

 And ascertained 'twas dead indeed. 

 A law, confirming this, is past ; 

 And dead enough it is, at last ! 



The farmers all fresh courage take. 

 They meet, and have a merry wake ; 

 Tell o'er the wrongs, which, like a lamb. 

 The farmer suffered, from the dam, 

 That fleeced him of his meadow crop, 

 Robbed him of profit, health and hope, 

 Excepted him, with bitter ban. 

 From covenant of God with man. 

 Oft in the cloud his rainbow set, 

 A sign that He remembered yet ! 

 The meadow-owners see it glow : 

 But not for them the promise-bow ! 

 Its guarantee they once enjoyed. 

 Until a charter made it void, 

 And, fearing neither man nor God, 

 The corporation raised a flood. 



