ISO Union Bay 



grazing of stock on the marsh hay, and the extensive picking 

 of berries by the Indians. A journal entry mentions the em- 

 ployment of one man "to mow rushes to be used in thatching 

 nouses if no better covering arrives." The attitude toward 

 rushes as a roof cover is evidenced by a later entry indicating 

 that cedar bark had been adopted for that purpose. There 

 was little evidence that the first white settlers had been able 

 to derive much benefit from marsh products in spite of the 

 fact that the natives made constant use of them. 



My inquiries were neither intense nor according to a 

 definite schedule. When a desire came to me to know about 

 the cattail, the heaviest producer in the marsh, I read here 

 and there among the ancients, the medieval herbalists, the 

 journals of settlers and explorers, and the exploring botanists, 

 until I learned something about it. John Gerard, who wrote 

 the sixteen-hundred-page volume, The Herhall, published in 

 1636, had this to say of "Cats-taile": 



Cats-taile hath long and flaggy leaves full of a spongeous matter or 

 pith, amongst which leaves groweth up a long smooth naked stalke 

 without knot, fashioned like a speare, of a firm or sollid substance, 

 having at the top a browne knop or eare, soft, thick, and smooth, 

 seeming to be nothing else but a deale of flocks thicke set and thrust 

 together, which being ripe turns into a downe and is carried away 

 with the winde. The roots be hard, thicke, and white, full of strings, 

 and good to burne, where there is plenty therof to be had. . . . 



Of this Cats-taile Aristophanes makes mention in his Comedy of 

 Frogs where he bringeth them forth one talking with another, being 

 very glad that they had spent the whole day in skipping and leaping 

 inter Cyperum 6- Phleum, among Galingale and Cats-taile. . . . 



The Vertues. 



The soft downe stamped with Swines grease wel washed, healeth 

 burnes or scalds with fire or water. 



Some Practitioners by their experience have found, that the downe 

 of the Cats taile beaten with the leaves of Betony, the roots of Gladiole, 

 and the leaves of Hyppoglosson into pouder, and mixed with the yelks 

 of egges hard sodden, & so eaten, is a most perfect remedy against 

 the disease in children . . . when the gut ... is fallen into the 

 cods. . . . 



