1724, Jonathan Swift, The Drapier's Letters (1903 edition), Letter 7:Neither should that odious custom be allowed, of cutting scraws, (as they call them) which is flaying off the green surface of the ground, to cover their cabins; or make up their ditches; sometimes in shallow soils, where all is gravel within a few inches; and sometimes in low ground, with a thin greensward, and sloughy underneath; which last turns all into bog, by this mismanagement.
1918, Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark, part 1, ch. 1:The Swedish Reform Church was in a sloughy, weedy district, near a group of factories.
