Salt hay was one of the many resources a marsh offered early farmers, though getting it out over soft peat and mud was difficult. One harvesting innovation was to stack the hay on a staddle, a platform above the reach of high tide, so that when the marsh froze in winter it could be hauled away safely over the ice on sleds. While working in the marsh, oxen and horses wore bog shoes to keep them from sinking into the mud. Another method was to load hay onto gundalows, flat-bottom boats narrow enough to be poled up tidal creeks. Boards lying in the mud indicate where a corduroy dock may have been built from cedar logs to transfer produce from a farm cart to a scow, a flat-bottom barge. These innovations became unnecessary when tide gates were built downstream at Cook's Point in 1815, preventing the tide from entering the marsh during haymaking. Red cedar posts extending around the marsh perimeter were probably placed there in the late 1800s and strung with barbed wire to keep cows from wandering into the marsh, with their pointed ends hammered into the soft peat instead of set in dug holes.