The Music of the Marsh 



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

 cress. 



The masses of flowers are made uj) of golden- 

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

 SAvamp laurel, cardinal flower, turtlehead, and 

 daisies peeping wherever they can reacli the light. 

 There are cone flowers, swamp sunflowers, every- 

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

 among the vines and mosses especially; and all of 

 ahnormal growth from the rich muck, warmth, and 

 the ahundance of A\ater. 



Although it is not so easy to attack the swamp 

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

 Big ditches are l)eing 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 unl)elie\'able 

 amount of space that soon dries for cultivation. 

 I knoA\' of homes being built so close the marsh 

 tliat \vater rises in your footsteps between roA^s of 

 culti\'ated vegetables. Everywhere the marsh is 

 driA'cu back, and as it recedes men hin-ry in witli 

 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 dam])er habit. Because they are so 

 tall, so delicate, and of such clear, ex((uisite blue, 

 marsh lilies (Camas.tia fraaeri) are consjjicuous 

 above any. They grow where it is slightly high 



331 



