August 30.
Am surprised to find on Minott's hard land, where he once raised potatoes, the hairy huckleberry, which before I had seen in swamps only. The berries are in longer racemes or clusters than any of our huckleberries. They are improved, you would say, by the firmer ground. They are the prevailing berry all over this field. Are now in prime.
The hairy huckleberry I think, grow here still because Minott is an old-fashioned man and has not scrubbed up and improved his land as many, or most, have. It is in a wilder and more primitive condition.
There was only one straight side to his land, and that I cut through a dense swamp. The fences are all meandering, just as they were at least in 1746, when it was described.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 30, 1860
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