stopped with clay. The lands which lie behind the dykes below the level of the sea have an average yield of three to four tons of hay per acre. The Grand Pré meadows are owned by farmers who live perhaps several miles away, on South Mountain or in the valleys. After the grass is cut,
. . . where two centuries of swath
Have fallen to earth before the mower's path
the cattle are turned on to browse, the number of head allowed to each owner being in proportion to the acreage he possesses. All the animals are branded, and here they range free until the winter comes on. Piles driven in the ground hoist the garnered hay high above an accident of tide. Such ricks dot all the marshes with shapes like a Hottentot house.
The road which passes through the hamlet above Grand Pré station is bordered by cottages, some of them dating from the earliest days of English occupancy and sentinelled by Norman poplars. One of the very oldest is on the corner diagonally opposite the post office. The Scotch Covenanter church on the hill was begun over a hundred years ago. Every Sunday afternoon service is held in its exceedingly quaint auditory, the congregation entering by a side door which opens to the rear of the stiff-necked pews, the minister addressing his hearers from a lofty pulpit roofed by a sounding-board.
