Stout-—Vegetation of a Typical Wild Hay Meadow. 411 
The area studied is chiefly included in the property of the 
Dane County Fair Association and is one of the many wild hay 
meadows in the vicinity of Madison. In its general outline this 
marsh meadow is almost circular and it is nearly surrounded by 
low irregular morainic knolls. The east edge has been cut by 
the road beds of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, 
and the western side by that of the Chicago and Northwestern 
Railway. At the south edge a race track has been built out into 
the marsh. A few large ditches have been dug mainly for the 
drainage of the race course. Formerly a shallow, sluggish 
water course known as Murphy Creek meandered through the 
center serving as an overflow outlet from Lake Wingra but its 
function is now taken by a canal recently cut between Lakes 
Wingra and Mendota. A broad strip of marsh extending 
through the center from north to south is at present little af¬ 
fected by these changes and it is this region that I have espe¬ 
cially studied. 
The area is almost perfectly flat as is shown in the photo¬ 
graphs here reproduced. The elevation is but a few feet above 
the level of the lake which lies at its nearest point but a few 
rods from the eastern border of the marsh. During the spring 
and after heavy summer rains water floods much of the area to 
a depth of several inches. 
Ten soil borings made at points along the transect showed 
that the surface layer of humus muck and well rotted peat is 
from one to four feet in depth. There is a shallow layer at the 
south edge where for a distance of one hundred and twenty- 
five feet it is underlaid by sand, fine gravel, and red clay at a 
depth of from a few inches to one and one-half feet. The 
greater portion of the central part has about four feet of peaty 
material underlaid by a fine grained blue clay. A broad belt 
at the north is underlaid by white sand. The water table in 
these holes, bored during the autumn of 1908 at an unusually 
dry time, varied from a few inches beneath the surface in the 
central portions to three feet or more in the portions underlaid 
by sand. 
In common with the numerous marshes of this part of Wis- 
