Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1917-08-03

Lemon Fair, Otter Creek, Beaver Brook
and Leicester River supported the fact
or contention that excessive ralnfalls in
the summer months after the grass had
nearly got its growth, was damaging
to the crop wherever 1t caused the river
to over flow and cover the grass and
it further appeared that the year 1871
and possibly 1905 were years of eXces,
sive rainfall in the summer season and
that peculiarly wet seasons were fol-
lowed by injury to the foul meadow hay
land the introduction Of broad grass for
a time afterwards, but there the para-
lei ends,
The evidence with regard to the OF
ter Creek tends to show and find the
injuries TO the meadows began and was
noticeable soon after the dam was
erected, and that the injury was pro-
gressive and continued until after the
dam was removed. While with regard
to the Lemon Fair, ! think, there was
no evidence of any injury to the mead
ows until the year 1897 and there after
wards the injury was Immediately con-
nected with and traceable TO peculiarly
wet season So that allowing that all
the witnesses said with regard to the
Lemon Fair to be true and finding in
accordance Herewith, still il does not
explain the conditions of the Otter
Creek.
THE CASE AS MADE BY THE FARMERS
Many of the orators and the farmers
not interested in the itigations who
were residents OF the Otter Creek Val:
ley or who have worked upon these
flats or have had opportunity to observe
the conditions of the low lands during
the dashboard period, were called as
witnesses Many or these were to the
manner born" and had been familiar
with this river and those lands for more
than fifty years. They not only know
from experience and observation but
they know the traditions of the neigh
borhood and had absorbed the knowledge
of their fathers. Almost without ex-
ception these men testified that a
change in the condition of the low land
was manifest soon after the year 1893
and that the condition continued grow
ing worse most of the time until the
end of the dashboard period, when it
began to improve that the condition
passec off as it came gradually but
steady until, by cultivation and by
nature, the original condition has been
largely restored. 1t appears that no
like conditions have ever obtained in
the memory Of the oldest inhabitant;
that excessively wet seasons had pre-
viously come and gone; that the crops
might be impaired or lost during par
ticular season but that the low lands
again rebounded to their natural condi-
ton and yielded their average subse-
Quent to the wet season as before; that
the condition after the erection of
the dam was different and unlike the
wet seasons prior to that time; that the
soil lost its surface or its turf and not
withstandng that there were seasons
during the dashboard period that were
worse than others, nevertheless there
was no time that the low lands came
back to their conditions prior to the
dashboard period; and that the brush
and broadgrass became the dominate
growth to the exclusion of all other
crops that the practice and nse Of mud
shoes upon their horses feet was in |
troduced for the first time after the
erection of the dam; and that they re-
sorted to means unknown before that |
period for the raising and securing
their crops but that the conditions grew |
steadily worse until many of the farm |
ers gave away hay for the purpose of
having it removed from the land, while |
others cut and burned or burned with
out cutting, in the hope of securing bet
ter crops on the coming year, until at |
length some or many of the farmers be-
came altogether discouraged in the con-
test with the waters and finally aban- |
oned the meadows altogether.
The Otter Creek is the home Iof the |
muskrat and men now advanced in
years have followed the occupation of !
trapping from their youth up. These
men have become rich in the lure of the
game and in the lore of the |
streams. They know when the waters
should rise and when they should fall,
and when and where to seek their
quarry. 1t seems that the muskrat
ordinarily has three sets of holes, the
one above the other along the banks of
the stream that are adapted to the
varying elevations of the water, and
these trappers observed that during the
dashboard period the lower hole was
generally, if not always, submerged by
the stream and to the trapper, this
marked difference noted by him be-
tween conditions that existed before
and during the dashboard period. Others
noted that the basin took on more the
appearance of lake and that on oc-
casons of especial floods and times of
high water the setback was more APP
parent and that at times the brush and
hay and loose foatable material that
was lying open upon the surface Of the
meadows, would be caught up in the
swirl and onrush of the waters and
would be borne upstream instead of
down and be distributed at places re-
mote from where it originally was and
sometimes far up the basin. That these
conditions came with the dashboard
period and were observed, wondered at
and commented on by witnesses who at
the time did not know or had not heard
of the erection of the dam.
AN CDnAC rDnNr LCCrANDIN II