July i, 1891.J 



Garden and Forest. 



303 



as to the plants to be grown with the greatest advantage com- 

 mercially, but with the plants themselves. We need not do 

 more than incidentally mention the great part that Kew has 

 taken in the diffusion of such plants as Cinchona, Coffee, 

 Caoutchouc and many others. 



Who can estimate the value of the labors which have 

 been carried on in those quiet-looking propagating-houses 

 at Kew for the last half century ? 



T ] 



How We Renewed an Old Place. 



XI. — RECLAIMING A SALT-MEADOW. 



'HE fable of Metius Curtius plunging on horseback into the 

 morass which had opened in the Roman Forum, because 

 the oracle had declared that only the best thing in Rome would 

 be of avail to close it up, seems simply to show that the 

 .Romans, great engineers as they were, fully recognized that 

 filling up a marsh was a well-nigh endless job, which would 

 require the sacrifice of the best blood and treasure of the state 

 before it was accomplished. 



In spite of the illustrious warning given by M. Curtius, there 

 lives not a man with soul so dead as not to be fired with ambi- 

 tion to make dry ground out of his meadow, if he is so unlucky 

 as to own one ; and he always starts in with figures on paper 

 to show what a fine income of hay is to result from a com- 

 paratively small investment of labor and gravel. But the work 

 goes on, then more work and more gravel, till finally the ac- 

 count of this part of the business gets mislaid, so that by the 

 time the far-distant hay-crop begins to materialize, a page has 

 settled over the amount of capital (literally) sunk, and only 

 the hay returns are brought prominently to the front. 



When we first surveyed the half acre or so of salt-grass 

 which had been left over on our side of the fence when the 

 road was built across the meadow, it did not seem of much 

 importance, one way or the other. The English grass grew 

 luxuriantly down to the edge of it, and the soft, fine, salt-hay 

 was excellent for bedding, the only objection being that it was 

 so palatable that the horses ate up their mattress before break- 

 fast every morning. 



After the causeway was constructed across the wet ground 

 behind the stable to Winter Street, there did not seem very 

 much reason for meddling further with the marsh, but given 

 a gravel-bank at one end of a farm, and a swamp at the other, 

 and you may depend upon it there will be a marriage between 

 them at no very distant date. 



The intercourse between the two of our acquaintance, once 

 begun, was seldom interrupted, the more the meadow saw of 

 the hill the more it wanted to see, and, with a perversity only 

 to be found in meadows, the more it was given the more it 

 wanted of the same kind. 



At first it seemed as if a few cart-loads of stones dumped in 

 the lowest parts, where the water stood longest, would be ail- 

 sufficient, but the amount of material that this anaconda of a 

 marsh can stow away is, to use the slang of the day, phenome- 

 nal. 



Piles of stones, rubbish, sand, boughs of trees, old crockery, 

 ashes, the debris of our own and other people's places, it 

 "swallows them all without any remorse," till the top of the 

 fence along the road has nearly disappeared from view, and 

 still it calls for more, and continues to subside. 



Across the street our neighbors have tried the experiment 

 before us, so that we are aware that it is unsafe to put soil on 

 this gravel until after it has had a chance to settle- for a year 

 or two, otherwise a high tide is liable to come and wash away 

 all the loam out to sea. 



As the surface rises the fresh water runs off less easily, so 

 that the enterprise gains in magnitude as it goes along, and 

 the space covered promises to turn out a whole acre instead 

 of half a one, before the job is fairly completed. 



Still, time and the hill will fill even this capacious maw, and, 

 though at present in a sketchy condition, the meadow gives 

 promise of a beautiful grass field, which, it is to be hoped, 

 will repay all the labor of its construction. 



The tradition goes that the building of the street behind us 

 across his meadow-lot was too much for the gentleman who 

 owned the place at the time it was made, and that he never 

 recovered from the shock of having his estate thus divided 

 and his house-lot spoiled. The enterprise was a formidable 

 one, for it involved the construction of a great stone arch 

 across the stream that drains the meadow, and the laying down 

 of heavy plank rafts for the piers of the stone bridge to stand 

 upon. For years and years the road would be built up to a 

 good height every summer, and then would subside under 



the influence of the high tides in the autumn and spring, till it 

 seemed as if it would never hold its own, and keep its head 

 above water all the year round. 



But constant renewals of the layers of gravel have at length 

 made of it so substantial a causeway that nothing but the very 

 highest of spring-tides prevails against it, and such water as 

 finds itself on our side, forces itself rather under than over it. 



Those of our neighbors who have reclaimed land from the 

 main meadow on the other side of the road, have done so by 

 first building a kind of rough dam of stones and clay, and then 

 gradually filling in behind this dam with rubbish, and stones, 

 and sand until they reach the level of the street. When prop- 

 erly covered with loam, after having had plenty of time to set- 

 tle, this well- watered foundation affords excellent soil for grass, 

 which grows upon it with great luxuriance. 



As the road acts still further for a dam between us and the 

 meadow, our task becomes simpler, and we can reclaim our 

 piece of land with far less trouble than our neighbors have 

 had with theirs, and we are encouraged to look for equally 

 good results. 



But it is distressing to see the surface of the hill, which we 

 would fain see rolling in graceful slopes to the swale, waving 

 with the forest of our imagination, still vexed by the presence 

 of carts and horses, and torn by the torturing spade. 



He who undertakes to change the face of Nature must needs 

 have patience. Monarchs like Nebuchadnezzar may hang gar- 

 dens in the air in a few months, or a Louis Fourteenth may 

 construct a pleasure-ground like Versailles, by the aid of forty 

 millions and the genius of Le Notre, in a few years ; but one 

 who has not the resources of an empire at command must 

 imitate more closely Nature's own deliberate and tortuous 

 methods, often seeing the labor of years destroyed in a mo- 

 ment by an unforeseen freak of the old dame, who resents 

 being interfered with, or finding to his dismay that his own 

 scheme has been a mistaken one, and must be revised. 



An illustrious townsman of ours started out like ourselves 

 with a bit of salt-meadow, in which he laboriously constructed 

 a pond, spending his hours of ease from the cares of state in 

 building a wall about it, to make a neat and appropriate curb. 

 But after this was accomplished, with much trouble, it proved 

 not to be at all what he wanted, so that there was nothing for 

 it but to fill the hole, and with months of labor bring the 

 meadow into a smoothly turfed field. 



Our day of repentance has not yet dawned, but we have a 

 fear that it lurks somewhere behind the horizon. Some mod- 

 ern Metius Curtius may yet have to be found to help fill up 

 the marsh with a horse and wagon, for that Charybdis has 

 already taken toll more than once from a dump-cart, though 

 she has not yet succeeded in swallowing it up in spite of 

 various malicious efforts. She has designs upon the cow, only 

 frustrated by careful watchfulness, and to her deep treachery 

 there is no end. The family purse she long ago put in her 

 pocket, and her mouth yawns for all the future revenues that 

 may accrue for her benefit. She has eaten up a large part of 

 a neighbor's hill, besides taking most unbecoming bites out of 

 our own, and if ever future generations weave a legend about 

 the ancient dragon of Overlea, which demanded a victim every 

 summer, it will be traced by the unraveler of myths of the pe- 

 riod, to the unremitting appetite of this hungry meadow. 



But who, looking out, on some sweet spring day, upon that 

 beguiling distance, could believe ill of anything so softly 

 lovely as the picturesque marsh of which ours is the fag-end. 

 In the foreground, the richest tones of green are gently blend- 

 ing in the grass ; in the middle distance a point runs out 

 toward the stream, laden with fruit-trees in snowy bloom ; the 

 Willows near and far are putting on their gray-green coats, 

 making a tender shimmer around their swaying branches and 

 graceful twigs. The little river winds blue and full, here and 

 there amid the grassy stretches, and the distant hills are full 

 of opalescent hues of emerald and pearl, with red of tree- 

 stems, and faintest green hints of foliage, such as Monet would 

 love to paint. The houses of the port, not yet quite veiled by 

 leaves, make spots of white and yellow and red against the 

 deepening background of Elms and Maples. A streak of blue 

 still indicates the harbor; by to-morrow it will have disap- 

 peared, for the vision changes like a kaleidoscope — the white 

 of Pear-blossoms passing like a cloud, to be succeeded by the 

 rosy blush of Apple-buds. Each day some well-known feature 

 of the winter landscape grows fainter as the leaves expand, 

 till of a sudden you look for it and it has gone, and in its stead 

 are the full-robed trees. Over all domes a blue sky streaked 

 with faint white cirrus clouds, only the azure reflected in the 

 placid stream below. 



An impressionist alone could catch this fleeting beauty of 

 early May — to-day one thing, to-morrow another — and fix it 



