Water meadow

“ The meadow was transversely crossed by a curving line of alders that indicated a rare water-course, of which in the dry season only a single pool remained to flash back the unvarying sky. There had been no attempt at cultivation of this broad expanse; wild oats, mustard, and rank grasses left it a tossing sea of turbulent and variegated color whose waves rode high enough to engulf horse and rider in their choking depths. Even the traces of human struggle, the uprooted stakes, scattered fence-rails, and empty post-holes were forever hidden under these billows of verdure. ”

“ The gentle rise of water around the trees in the meadow, where oaks and maples stand far out in the sea, and young elms sometimes are seen standing close around some rock which lifts its head above the water, as if protecting it, preventing it from being washed away, though in truth they owe their origin and preservation to it. It first invited and detained their seed, and now preserves the soil in which they grow. ”

“ The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end. Over the hedge on one side we looked into a plowed field, and on the other we looked over a gate at our master's house, which stood by the roadside; ”

“ The meadow rests upon a floor of gravel and sand. It varies in thickness from a few inches at the uplands to eight or ten feet near the beach, and is filled with the roots of grasses throughout. It has been formed by growth and accumulation at the surface, for the meadow-grasses thrive only at or near high-tide level where rainfall and sunshine can reach them. The increase of the meadow in thickness has, therefore, just kept pace with the deepening of the water, or in other words, with the sinking of the coast. ”

“ It is very interesting to walk along such a brook as this in the midst of the meadow, which you can better do now before the frost is quite out of the sod, and gaze into the deep holes in its irregular bottom and the dark gulfs under the banks. Where it rushes over the edge of a steep slope in the bottom, the shadow of the disturbed surface is like sand hurried forward in the water. ”

“ After we had done looking at the lions of Abury which took us about 1⁄2 an hour we went through a mud lane down one or two fields and last but not least through what they call here a water meadow up to our knees in water, now perhaps you do not know what a water meadow is as there are none of them in your part of the world, so for your edification I will tell you what a delectable affair a water meadow is to go through ”

“ It was a day when the creek ran clear and the south wind smelled of the earth. Wild bees began to whine among the willows, and the meadow bloomed over with poppy-breasted larks. Then said one of the old men, "Here is good meadow and water enough; let us build a house and grow trees. We are too old to dig in the mines." ”

“ These conditions give rise to a meadowy vegetation, whose extending roots still more obstruct the free flow of the waters, and tend to dissipate them out over a yet wider area. Thus the moraine soil and the necessary moisture requisite for the better class of meadow plants are at times combined about as perfectly as if smoothly outspread on a level surface. Where the soil happens to be composed of the finer qualities of glacial detritus and the water is not in excess, the nearest approach is made by the vegetation to that of the lake-meadow. ”

“ Sometimes we would come to a natural meadow grown up with alders, around the borders of which stood much young poplar. A stream of water flowed through the meadow, and the beavers had discovered that it was eminently fitted, if not designed, for their necessities. Accordingly, they had selected an advantageous spot where nature had kindly thrown up a bank of earth on each side and drawn the ends down comparatively near to the stream. ”

“ Through a considerable period the meadow vegetation is not greatly affected thereby, for it gradually rises with the rising ground, keeping on the surface like water-plants rising on the swell of waves. But at length the elevation of the meadow-land goes on so far as to produce too dry a soil for the specific meadow-plants, when, of course, they have to give up their places to others fitted for the new conditions. The most characteristic of the newcomers at this elevation above the sea are principally sun-loving gilias, eriogonae, and compositae, and finally forest-trees. ”

“ Where any considerable stream enters a lake, a flat meadow is usually observed increasing from year to year. The soil of this meadow is disposed in horizontal strata: the meadow is terminated by a marsh; which marsh is acquiring solidity, and is soon to be converted into a meadow, as the meadow will be into an arable field. All this while the sediment of the river makes its way slowly into the lake, forming a mound or bank under the surface of the water, with a pretty rapid slope toward the lake. This mound increases by the addition of new earth, sand, and gravel, poured in over the slope ”

“ So great is the retention of water in many places in the main belt, that bogs and meadows are created by the killing of the trees. A single trunk falling across a stream in the woods forms a dam 200 feet long, and from ten to thirty feet high, giving rise to a pond which kills the trees within its reach. These dead trees fall in turn, thus making a clearing, while sediments gradually accumulate changing the pond into a bog, or meadow, for a growth of carices and sphagnum. ”

“ A few thousand yards distant from the forester's place, which to-day served as a rendezvous, lay a wooded meadow, lonely and almost lost in the midst of the foliage. During the summer season it was concealed from view by thick underbrush and stately trees, but now it was in full sight, the trees and bushes being nearly dismantled of their foliage. In the centre of the clearing there was a body of water, a small, transparent lake such as the forest often conceals in its depths. ”

“ One of the most conspicuous changes, is the withdrawal of a large pond of water that had been pent up by a high dam, over which the water fell, over the bridge we are now crossing, roaring, casting up spray, and then foaming and dancing off, into the meadow below.
Many of the buildings have changed their old fashioned coats of red for the more modern one of white, which is the case with our own old homestead. ”

“ Then, after a few years the dam will rot out and break down, the pond will go dry, the water will get back to its old channel, and grass and willows and other brush will grow up over the old bottom of the pond, and there you've got a big wide flat—what we call a beaver meadow. All along streams all over this western country there are big strips of flat land that have been made just in this way by the beaver."
"I have never thought of that before, Hugh, and I never heard anybody speak of it. The time may come when people will farm on these big flats, never knowing how they were made." ”

“ Since he is careful to pick the best spot for building, the chances are that he will place the dam where his unknown ancestor placed it; if you dig beneath the new structure, you will find the solid foundation of the old. As the water flows back, being checked in its onward course by the dam, the grasses slowly disappear until their heads are covered, and presently the meadow is a beaver pond once more. Then without hurry or anxiety a goodly store of food is gathered, a lodge rises on the shore, and the family have all things ready before winter comes and the ice locks them in. ”

“ First of all, let them try to fancy a large meadow, either perfectly flat or a little uneven, as large, perhaps, as can be measured with the eye, and sometimes without a single tree, or scarcely a clump of bushes. There will be no fences in sight, and sometimes no streams of water, but the surface of the ground is covered with high, coarse grass. This is what Western people call a "prairie." ”

“ But the meadow is the prolific power of life, and of all-various reasons, is the comprehension of the first efficient causes of life, and is the cause of the variety, and generation of forms. For the meadows also which are here are productive of all-various forms and reasons, and bear water which is the symbol of vivification. ”

“ When beavers have made choice of a meadow traversed by a rivulet, they construct, by their joint operation, dams or causeways, which, impeding the course of the water, produce an inundation over the whole meadow, sometimes several leagues in circumference. ”

“ During the wet seasons the meadow is itself covered. Even in the banks of the stream, then under water, there were holes, but they all extended obliquely without exception, there being no perpendicular burrows and no mounds. The holes extended in about six inches, and there was never a perpendicular branch, nor even an enlargement at the end. I always found the inhabitant near the mouth, and by quickly cutting off the rear part of the hole could force him out, but unless forcibly driven out it would never leave the hole, not even when a stick was thrust in behind it. ”

“ In rare instances we find an alpine basin the bottom of which is a perfect meadow, and the sides nearly all the way round, rising in gentle curves, are covered with moraine soil, which, being saturated with melting snow from encircling fountains, gives rise to an almost continuous girdle of down-curving meadow vegetation that blends gracefully into the level meadow at the bottom, thus forming a grand, smooth, soft, meadow-lined mountain nest. ”

“ Meadows hanging on ridge and mountain slopes, not in basins at all, but made and held [Pg 159] in place by masses of boulders and fallen trees, which, forming dams one above another in close succession on small, outspread, channelless streams, have collected soil enough for the growth of grasses, carices, and many flowering plants, and being kept well watered, without being subject to currents sufficiently strong to carry them away, a hanging or sloping meadow is the result. ”

“ They always lie far within the flaming Foot Hills, their exquisite stretches of flowery pastures dotted artistically with clumps of trees sloping lawnlike to bright swift streams full of red-waist-coated trout, or running up in soft glades into the dark forest, above which the snow peaks rise in their infinite majesty. Some are bits of meadow a mile long and very narrow, with a small stream, a beaver dam, and a pond made by beaver industry. ”

“ The meadows are now covered with flowers in full bloom: the forests have put on their beautiful garments of green: the birds are busy in tending their young; the mornings are ushered in with silvery dews, and the evenings come like a soft veil thrown over the cradle of her children, by the gentle hand of nature, to make their slumbers sweet and secure.
The farmer is now busy in gathering his crop of hay,—​though, as he swings his scythe, he unhappily disturbs many a pretty nest of the meadow lark, the sparrow, and the boblink. ”

“ You may throw a stone across this meadow cove and in any direction save at its narrow entrance from the pond you will hit tall woods that in dense array lean lovingly over it and give it cool shadows except when the sun is high. Between the tall trees and the meadow grasses grows the clethra, its white spikes of perfume [67] seeming to make a lace collar all about the place. In the bottom of this meadow grows much thoroughwort, which is a plain, homely weed to the passing glance, not considered fit for a garden nor thought to beautify a roadside as do so many fairer pasture blooms. ”

“ I was walking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the shrub-oaks on the hill-side, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. ”

“ Passing deeper into the wood, it is well to be a little careful while stepping across the narrow watercourse that winds between the stoles. Rushes grow thickly by the side, and the slender stream seems to ooze rather than run, trickling slowly down to the brook in the meadow. But the earth is treacherous on its banks—formed of decayed branches, leaves, and vegetable matter, hidden under a thin covering of aquatic grasses. ”

“ This kind of meadow usually carries a covering stratum of a kind of peat or turf which is composed almost entirely of matted grass or sedge roots that are almost free from earthy or mineral matter. These meadows lack warmth or soil sufficient to germinate tree seeds or to grow trees. Often they remain beautiful treeless gardens for generations, while wind and wash slowly bring sediment, or until a flood or landslip brings soil. The deep burning of the surface and the consequent deposit of ash on the new surface probably offered an abiding-place to the next adventurous tree seeds. ”

“ We soon reached the beaver-meadow, which extended two or three miles; sometimes contracting into a narrow gorge, between the wooded heights, then spreading out again into an ample field of verdure, and presenting everywhere the same unvarying level surface, surrounded with rising grounds, covered with the dense unbroken forest, as if its surface had formerly been covered by the waters of a lake; which in all probability has been the case at some not very remote period. In many places the meadow was so wet that it required a very large share of faith to support us in passing over its surface ”