Walk the meadow now! Scarce the memory of a flower will you
find. The ground seems twice dead. Nevertheless, the annual resurrection
is drawing near. The life-giving sun pours his floods, the last
snow-wreath melts, myriads of growing points push eagerly through the
steaming mold, the birds come back, new wings fill the air, and fervid
summer life comes surging on, seemingly yet more glorious than before.
This is a perfect meadow, and under favorable circumstances exists
without manifesting any marked changes for centuries. Nevertheless, soon
or late it must inevitably grow old and vanish. During the calm Indian
summer, scarce a sand-grain moves around its banks, but in flood-times
and storm-times, soil is washed forward upon it and laid in successive
sheets around its gently sloping rim, and is gradually extended to the
center, making it dryer. 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.
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