CHAPTER I.

THE FACE OF THE LAND AND GROWING THINGS

I would like to go back with you farther, to fifteen or twenty thousand years ago. At that time the finale of the ice sheets was at hand. The ice sheets, hundreds of feet thick, started as glaciers in Canada perhaps a million years ago and worked southward two thousand miles and came to a melting end and their progress stopped in the Cape Cod and Nantucket area. They scraped bedrock to leave white sands, dumping earth debris to form moraines and drumlins. They left deep kettle holes of solid ice, which melted and formed what are now the many ponds of the area. The whole Plymouth region is dotted by many such ponds of various sizes.

It seems that nature wants to cover over water areas, so eventually some of these low depressions became swamps, bogs and low woodlands. Swamp shrubs such as alder, sweet pepperbush, sheep laurel, blueberries, acid loving plants, are everywhere, as are sedge, sphagnum moss, aquatic plants. Pitcher plants in low areas trap insects, as do sundews, as a source of some protein. Pink sabbatia grows abundantly on the shores of South and Boot Ponds, a jewel among wild flowers. It has been called the Rose of Plymouth. Its botanical name is sabatia angularis, and its stem gives the illusion of having four sides.

The poor quality soil left by the ice sheets in many places can by no means be rich for farming and crops. Sand is not far beneath the top soil except in a few meadow areas which the early settlers sought for their plantings. One example of a rich soil area is in the “mile and a half strip” in the region of Plymouth Rock which the Indians used for their plantings almost up to the time the _Mayflower_ arrived. This strip of rich soil was good fortune for the Pilgrims, a decisive factor making it possible for the newcomers to grow corn and other crops and survive the first years.

The prevailing soil was hospitable for white pines and pitch pines, now growing everywhere, as well as for cedars which have a liking for swamps. There are small patches of almost untouched original forest still found on the original Burgess homestead tract. There are a few isolated giant white pines up to 140 feet in height and trunks over three feet in diameter. I have found one white pine, straight and of enormous height, with a trunk measuring 84” around at the base, a diameter of 27” or so.

Pines are a sun loving tree and in these undisturbed wooded areas one can observe how they gradually overcame the oaks and other hardwoods by reaching higher for the sun. From 1688 the king’s decree reserving all white pine of trunk diameter of 24” or more for the royal navy masts was enforced. Such trees were marked with an arrow to identify them as crown property.

The acid soil found in the area is a factor in the type of growth for shrubs and wildflowers found here. High bush and low bush blueberries, as well as huckleberries grow in abundance. Shadbushes, also juneberries, usually the first shrub to blossom in the spring, supposedly when shad or alewives move up from salt water into the freshwater streams for spawning, are seen around the property. There are three of considerable age near the house. Other members of the heath family thrive. Wild white azaleas grow in the shady areas near the ponds. Sheep laurel grows in many places. Wintergreen or checkerberry is common in the woods, their red berries a delight to the taste in the autumn. Trailing arbutus, called mayflower by the new arrivals, is thought to be the first bloom of spring they saw. It is found along banks in shady old wood roads in the early part of April after the snows have gone. This is also the state flower of Massachusetts. In June elderberry and arrowroot shrubs flower with white blossoms in many places. Steeple bush and sweet pepperbush give off their fragrance later on in the summer. Bayberry grows most everywhere and in the fall their silver berries are ready for those who would make candles from their wax.

The woods contain many sassafras trees, some of large size. Sassafras roots were one of the first important exports back to England for the Pilgrims. The roots make good tasting tea. The trees have fall foliage of bright colors. In Colonial days, bedsteads were made of sassafras wood, believed to protect against vermin. Champlain carried back sassafras to France as a cure for venereal diseases.[3] Hornbeams, related to the ironwood family, have a structural form suggesting that of some Japanese trees. Their red, brown and yellow foliage in early fall long before frost is a pleasant sight. The settlers considered them good for fence post material. Related European trees were used for yoking oxen and possibly the word beam and horn are concerned with oxen.[4]

On the floor of the woods made soft by deep layers of pine needles moccasin flowers, called pink lady slippers, of the orchid family are found frequently. One past spring I found a cluster of perhaps fifty pink lady slippers in bloom in one small area and had a pleasure that reminded me of Wordsworth and his host of daffodils. Starflowers, of the primrose family and wild lily of the valley fill the deep pine grove near the house in May. In late August the woods are full of ivory Indian pipes. They burst up through the pine needle floor like a mushroom. This plant is without green and has a wax-like appearance and yellow flowers inside the pipe. It has mutual parasites in its structure and gets nourishment from decaying organic matter in the shade. With abundant moisture they greatly increase in number. The Indians sometimes used them for eye lotion.

In season, other wildflowers around here are campion, cinquefoil, devil’s paint brush, blue-eyed grass, purple asters, goldenrod, milkweed, wild lettuce and asparagus, pink mullein, and lion’s foot. There is a large clump of wild roses. There are yarrow, indigo, and yellow dog tooth and white and blue violets and in September the purple gerardia, a member of the snapdragon family. On the pond shores grow species of orchis, hyssop, lobelias, and the seven angled pipewort and sundews. Many wildflowers grow here that I have not mentioned, but you can see that there is a moveable feast of flowers.

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