446 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



November, 1908 



Rustic Causeway Across a Lake 



water can run oft quickly, and the whole area should be 

 graded so carefully that no water can stand for any length 

 of time. 



I his scheme will work well if there are no large streams 

 delivering flood water to the area, but it can only be under- 

 taken when the proposed water level comes at half tide or 

 above. It will undoubtedly change the character of the 

 marsh, since the salt grasses will gradually give place, or 

 can be made to do so, to more delicate varieties, and trees, 

 shrubs and weeds will continually creep in. But if the plant- 

 ing be kept on the boundaries, and the meadow be left open 

 and mowed or grazed, then the large spirit of the place will 

 remain, even with the changed detail. Or if the salt grasses 

 are to be saved and others kept out, then the marsh can be 

 flooded twice a year and the salt water will kill the weeds 

 and tree seedlings. 



When the marsh is too low and is small, it is often possi- 

 ble to make a lake, and with the soil and sand so taken raise 

 the surrounding land high enough to be dry. Thus a marsh 

 of three acres has a lake of one acre area dug four feet deep 



( Concluded 



which fills the two acres left in grass to an average depth of 

 two feet. The practical working of this is not difficult, 

 requiring only an automatic gate to keep the water level 

 constant. 



If the marsh can be arranged so that there will be no rain- 

 water, or water left from perigee tides, in pools not con- 

 nected with the creeks, then the mosquito difficulty is solved, 

 because larva? do not live in water that fish reach. This is 

 the simplest way to treat marsh, and can be done cheaply on 

 a large scale, but makes its use limited to one crop of hay 

 per year and its esthetic value. 



I have thus far been considering marsh which is almost 

 land locked and can be easily dyked, but there are large 

 areas, as on the Great South Bay, Long Island, where the 

 marsh is a narrow strip between sea and land. In such a 

 place filling to raise the grade is the only thing. Bayberry 

 Point, at Islip, is such an experiment. Here a deep channel 

 was dredged at right angles to the shore line and the marsh 

 filled by pumping sand on top. This left a barren waste of 

 sand, which later on was covered with soil by the buyers of 



on page 453) 



Summer House and Margin Planting by the Water 



