Read in text form below or click on the arrow above to listen to the audio recording.
NARRATED BY DR. MOLLY EDWARDS
Welcome to the Pasture & Clover banner. A Colonial farmer is busy repairing his pasture fence, and an English clover plant in bloom forms the background of the image. Each leaf is divided into a delicate cluster of three leaflets.
Paul Revere on horseback is perhaps the most iconic image from the story of April 18 and 19, 1775. Revere, Willam Dawes, and many other riders formed a network that spread the “alarm” that the British were on their way. Swift and sturdy horses were essential to gathering men from a 30-mile radius overnight into a force of over 3,500.
Menotomy’s fenced pastures were essential for keeping horses, as well as cattle, sheep and oxen. All these animals were originally imported from England to continue a way of life centuries old. In addition to transport, they provided staples for the household – including butter, cheese, meat and wool. They helped small farmers generate profits which could be used to purchase European goods or more land. And they radically transformed the native ecology of New England fields.
Before colonization, indigenous people did not keep livestock or fence areas for specific uses. Native grasses, wildflowers and shrubs were not exposed to intense grazing down to their root structure. The settlers’ pasture system – enclosing livestock in small spaces – decimated diverse ecosystems, impacting butterflies, moths, insects, birds, snakes, lizards, and other small animals that depended on native plants.
The colonists reseeded bare fields with the plants of an English pasture when they realized that native plants did not provide the nutrition that livestock needed. At first, English seeds spread on their own, transported along with feed and bedding. But by the 1760s seeds were commercially available and promised the hardiness, nutrition and visual appeal of the English meadows of home. These species, including clover, have become so pervasive over 250 years that we perceive them today as part of the natural landscape rather than an invasive species.
Almost a hundred years after the events of 1775, Henry David Thoreau made a close study of the remaining native grasses and wildflowers in neighboring Concord. He collected specimens of plants that were once ordinary and are now rare; these are preserved by the Harvard University Herbaria, a research collection of over 5 million dried pressed plant specimens. Thoreau also closely observed seasonal changes in plants and kept meticulous daily field notes. His data are still being used by modern scientists to measure and study the impact of climate change on the living landscape.
Today, whether English meadow or native grassland, much of the green space in Arlington has been built over. Neighborhood parks still give people great pleasure, and there is a community effort to restore native plants in these spaces and in backyards to protect pollinators and wildlife and increase environmental resiliency as we face the challenges of the 21st century.