The Old Swamp 
H OW many years it has been there no one 
knows. Perhaps it was only one of the 
minor depressions left in the surface of 
the earth after the passage of the great glacier 
that swept over the land that is now ours when 
the race was young. Then our ancestors dwelt 
in caverns—true troglodytes—and slew the rein¬ 
deer and the hairy mammoth and the horse, and 
perhaps now and then had fierce conflicts with 
the huge cave bear, which they conquered by 
their courage and their numbers, rather than by 
the excellence of their rude stone weapons. 
Or it may have been once a broad valley, 
down which hurried a sparkling brooklet, which 
twisted and turned, winding from one side to 
the other of the level meadow; here rippling in 
a yellow current over the smooth pebbles of 
the bottom, there burrowing its way beneath 
overhanging grassy banks, where its soft mur¬ 
mur alone told of its presence; or again making 
some sudden crook and digging out for itself a 
deep, quiet pool, where the trout used to lie in 
summer, and in which the silent otter was al¬ 
ways sure to find a meal. Then, perhaps, a lit¬ 
tle family of beavers passed that way, and see¬ 
ing the brook and its possibilities determined 
that they would make it their home. Sq they 
began, by cutting down some of the trees that 
grew by the brookside, to build their dam. They 
brought mud and stones from the bottom of the 
stream and with their chisel-like teeth clipped off 
the willows and alders, and cut them into lengths, 
and their patient and unremitting industry fin¬ 
ished the dam by the end of summer. Now a 
good part of the meadow was a wide but shallow 
pond. Next the houses were built and the win¬ 
ter supply of food laid up, and, not long after 
this, the pond froze over. 
For years, perhaps for centuries, the colony of 
beavers remained here, always becoming more 
numerous. Sometimes they moved up or down 
the stream, and every few years they built new 
dams, and overflowed more of the low land. 
Those that they had first deserted had long ago 
rotted and broken down, and the ground which 
had first been grassy' meadow, and then the bot¬ 
tom of the pond, was now a wet marsh, in 
which grew young alders and willows and bil¬ 
berries, soft maples, cypress and tamaracks, and 
a hundred other moisture-loving trees, while the 
foot of the passing deer sank deep into the spongy 
sphagnum or crushed the showy yellow lady- 
slipper and the delicate pink arethusa. As the 
years went by the forest growth increased in 
size, while the smaller shrubs beneath formed a 
tangled mass, impenetrable save to the wild crea¬ 
tures which made their home among the luxuri¬ 
ant vegetation. 
Here during the summer, before the berries 
were ripe, the black bear dug roots, and tore up 
the rotten logs or turned over great stones, for 
the ants, worms and bugs on which he lives. 
The deer browsed on the water grasses and in 
winter nipped the tender shoots of the willows. 
The raccoon hunted frogs in the wet places, 
and at the approach of autumn grew fat on the 
thick-growing cluster of fox grapes, made sweet 
by the early frosts. All the other denizens of 
the forest found here a safe retreat, from which 
they made excursions into the surrounding hills. 
So it was with the old swamp when our 
fathers first took possession of the soil. Game 
was plenty then, and a man, when he needed 
meat, had to go but a short distance from his 
own door to kill a deer or a turkey. But as 
time went by, fire and the axe cleared away the 
timber from the surrounding hills. The hunter 
gave place to the husbandman. The sickle sup¬ 
planted the rifle. Now the game had become 
less plenty. Birds there were, it is true, but 
the largest game has disappeared from the land, 
except in the old swamp. That was as it had 
always been. The settlers had been busy, and it 
was the clearing of the land, rather than the ac¬ 
tual destruction of animal life, that had driven 
off the game. Now and then a hunter had pene¬ 
trated the tangle of the swamp in pursuit of a 
wounded animal, hut its interior was still a mys¬ 
terious unknown to all. 
It was to the old swamp that the hunters re¬ 
sorted now for game, and often the sharp crack 
of the rifle rang among the trees or the roar of 
the shotgun awoke its once silent echoes. The 
angler pushed its way down the course of the 
stream and caught the trout. One began to find 
paths in the swamp that were not game trails. 
A few more years passed by with rapid 
changes. The axe had been at work. Now all 
the timber had been cut away, but there was 
still left the undergrowth. Deer and bear and 
turkey and wild pigeons had disappeared, hut 
there were some grouse left, and the quail, when 
startled from the stubble fields about its borders, 
still sought safety in the old swamp. The clos¬ 
ing change in the old swamp was yet to come. 
Trenches were dug through the swamp. The 
brush was cut down and burned. The brook 
dried dp. The plow passed over the land, and 
the next year a crop of sod-corn was grown 
where once the beaver had their homes. Such 
is the history of many an old swamp. 
All this is progress—the march of improve¬ 
ment. It is also the reason why our streams 
are drying up, and why the farmer complains 
that each year there is less rain, and it is a 
harder matter to grow crops. It explains why 
our rivers are gradually becoming more and 
more shallow, why the water-power that turned 
a hundred mills, now turns none and is replaced 
by steam. It is something that is taking place 
all over our country. The clearing up of each 
swamp like this one is a misfortune to our peo¬ 
ple, and the aggregate of such misfortune means 
a loss of material wealth that can scarcely be 
computed. This loss is widely distributed, and 
is not felt as it comes, but increases year bv year. 
BOO 
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