Looking from the hilltop, I should say that there is more oak woodland than pine to be seen, especially in the north and northeast, but it is somewhat difficult to distinguish all in the gleaming sunlight of mid-afternoon.
Most of the oak is quite young. As for pines, I cannot say surely which kind is most prevalent, not being certain about the most distant woods.
I look down now on the top of a pitch pine wood southwest of Brooks's Pigeon-place, and its top, so nearly level, has a peculiarly rich and crispy look in the sun.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1860
Most of the oak is quite young. As for pines, I cannot say surely which kind is most prevalent, not being certain about the most distant woods.
I look down now on the top of a pitch pine wood southwest of Brooks's Pigeon-place, and its top, so nearly level, has a peculiarly rich and crispy look in the sun.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1860
To Annursnack. Looking from the hilltop it is somewhat difficult to distinguish all in the gleaming sunlight of mid-afternoon. See November 14, 1853 ("I climb Annursnack. . . From this hill I am struck with the smoothness and washed appearance of all the landscape. All these russet fields and swells look as if the withered grass had been combed by the flowing water. . . .. All waters — the rivers and ponds and swollen brooks — and many new ones are now seen through the leafless trees — are blue reservoirs of dark indigo amid the general russet and reddish-brown and gray."); May 8, 1853 ("They have cut off the woods, and with them the shad-bush, on the top of Annursnack, but laid open new and wider prospects. The landscape is in some respects more interesting because of the overcast sky, threatening rain; a cold southwest wind. . . .The pyramidal pine-tops are now seen rising out of a reddish mistiness of the deciduous trees just bursting into leaf. A week ago the deciduous woods had not this misty look, and the evergreens were more sharply divided from them, but now they have the appearance of being merged in or buoyed up in a mist."); May 15, 1853 ("I looked again on the forest from this hill, which view may contrast with that of last Sunday. The mist produced by the leafing of the deciduous trees has greatly thickened now and lost much of its reddishness in the lighter green of expanding leaves, has be come a brownish or yellowish green, except where it has attained distinctness in the light-green foliage of the birch, the earliest distinct foliage visible in extensive great masses at a great distance, the aspen not being common. The pines and other evergreens are now fast being merged in a sea of foliage."); July 20, 1851 ("Annursnack. The under sides of the leaves, exposed by the breeze, give a light bluish tinge to the woods as I look down on them. Looking at the woods west of this hill, there is a grateful dark shade under their eastern sides, where they meet the meadows, their cool night side, — a triangular segment of night, to which the sun has set. The mountains look like waves on a blue ocean tossed up by a stiff gale."); September 13, 1858 ("Looking from the top of Annursnack, the aspect of the earth generally is still a fresh green, especially the woods, but many dry fields, where apparently the June-grass has withered uncut, are a very pale tawny or lighter still. It is fit that some animals should be nearly of this color. The cougar would hardly be observed stealing across these plains. In one place I still detect the ruddiness of sorrel."); October 12, 1857 ("Looking from the Hill. . . .. I am not sure but the yellow now prevails over the red in the landscape, and even over the green. The general color of the landscape from this hill is now russet, i.e. red, yellow, etc., mingled. The maple fires are generally about burnt out. Yet I can see . . .yellows on Mt. Misery, five miles off, also on Pine Hill, and even on Mt. Tabor, indistinctly. Eastward, I distinguish red or yellow in the woods as far as the horizon, and it is most distant on that side")
Brooks's Pigeon-place. See September 13, 1858 ("A small dense flock of wild pigeons dashes by over the side of the hill, from west to east, — perhaps from Wetherbee’s to Brooks’s, for I see the latter’s pigeon place. They make a dark slate-gray impression") and note to September 15, 1859 ("To Annursnack. Dense flocks of pigeons hurry-skurry over the hill. Pass near Brooks's pigeon-stands. There was a flock perched on his poles, and they sat so still and in such regular order there, being also the color of the wood, that I thought they were wooden figures at first.")
P. M. - To Annursnack.
Looking from the hilltop, I should say that there was more oak woodland than pine to be seen, especially in the north and northeast, but it is somewhat difficult to distinguish all in the gleaming sunlight of midafternoon.
Most of the oak, however, is quite young.
As for pines, I cannot say surely which kind is most prevalent, not being certain about the most distant woods.
The white pine is much the most dispersed, and grows oftener in low ground than the pitch pine does. It oftenest forms mixed woods with oak, etc., growing in straight or meandering lines, occasionally swelling into a dense grove.
The pitch pines commonly occupy a dry soil a plain or brow of a hill, often the site of an old grain-field or pasture — and are much the most seclusive, for, being a new wood, oaks, etc., have had no opportunity to grow up there, if they could.
I look down now on the top of a pitch pine wood southwest of Brooks's Pigeon-place, and its top, so nearly level, has a peculiarly rich and crispy look in the sun. Its limbs are short and its plumes stout as compared with the white pine and are of a yellowish green.
There are many handsome young walnuts ten or twelve feet high scattered over the southeast side of Annursnack, or above the orchard. How came they there? Were they planted before a wood was cut? It is remarkable how this tree loves a hillside.
Behind G. M. Barrett's barn a scarlet oak stump 18 1/2 inches diameter and about 94 rings, which has sent up a sprout two or three years since.
On the plain just north of the east end of G. M. B.'s oaks, many oaks were sawed off about a year ago. Those I look at are seedlings and very sound and rings very distinct and handsome. Generally no sprouts from them, though one white oak sprout had been killed by frost.
- One white oak, 17 inches diameter, has 100 rings.
- A second, 16 1/2 inches diameter, also 100 rings.
Many seem to be so constituted that they can respect only somebody who is dead or something which is distant.
The less you get, the happier and the richer you are.
The rich man's son gets cocoanuts, and the poor man's, pignuts; but the worst of it is that the former never goes a-cocoanutting, and so he never gets the cream of the cocoanut as the latter does the cream of the pignut.
That on which commerce seizes is always the very coarsest part of a fruit, — the mere husk and rind, in fact, — for her hands are very clumsy. This is what fills the holds of ships, is exported and imported, pays duties, and is finally sold at the shops.
It is a grand fact that you cannot make the finer fruits or parts of fruits matter of commerce.
You may buy a servant or slave, in short, but you cannot buy a friend.
You can't buy the finer part of any fruit— i. e. the highest use and enjoyment of it.
You cannot buy the pleasure which it yields to him who truly plucks it; you can't buy a good appetite even.
The less you get, the happier and the richer you are.
The rich man's son gets cocoanuts, and the poor man's, pignuts; but the worst of it is that the former never goes a-cocoanutting, and so he never gets the cream of the cocoanut as the latter does the cream of the pignut.
That on which commerce seizes is always the very coarsest part of a fruit, — the mere husk and rind, in fact, — for her hands are very clumsy. This is what fills the holds of ships, is exported and imported, pays duties, and is finally sold at the shops.
It is a grand fact that you cannot make the finer fruits or parts of fruits matter of commerce.
You may buy a servant or slave, in short, but you cannot buy a friend.
You can't buy the finer part of any fruit— i. e. the highest use and enjoyment of it.
You cannot buy the pleasure which it yields to him who truly plucks it; you can't buy a good appetite even.
What are all the oranges imported into England to the hips and haws in her hedges? She could easily spare the one, but not the others. Ask Wordsworth, or any of her poets, which is the most to him.
The mass of men are very easily imposed on. They have their runways in which they always travel, and are sure to fall into any pit or box trap set therein.
Whatever a great many grown-up boys are seriously engaged in is considered great and good, and, as such, is sure of the recognition of the churchman and statesman.
What, for instance, are the blue juniper berries in the pasture, which the cowboy remembers so far as they are beautiful merely, to church or state? Mere trifles which deserve and get no protection. As an object of beauty, though significant to all who really live in the country, they do not receive the protection of any community.
Anybody may grub up all that exist.
But as an article of commerce they command the attention of the civilized world. I read that “several hundred tons of them are imported annually from the continent” into England to flavor gin with; "but even this quantity,” says my author, “is quite insufficient to meet the enormous consumption of the fiery liquid, and the deficiency is made up by spirits of turpentine.”
Go to the English Government, which, of course, is representative of the people, and ask, What is the use of juniper berries ? The answer is, To flavor gin with.
This is the gross abuse of juniper berries, with which an enlightened Government — if ever there shall be one — will have nothing to do.
Let us make distinctions, call things by the right names.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1860
The mass of men are very easily imposed on. They have their runways in which they always travel, and are sure to fall into any pit or box trap set therein.
Whatever a great many grown-up boys are seriously engaged in is considered great and good, and, as such, is sure of the recognition of the churchman and statesman.
What, for instance, are the blue juniper berries in the pasture, which the cowboy remembers so far as they are beautiful merely, to church or state? Mere trifles which deserve and get no protection. As an object of beauty, though significant to all who really live in the country, they do not receive the protection of any community.
Anybody may grub up all that exist.
But as an article of commerce they command the attention of the civilized world. I read that “several hundred tons of them are imported annually from the continent” into England to flavor gin with; "but even this quantity,” says my author, “is quite insufficient to meet the enormous consumption of the fiery liquid, and the deficiency is made up by spirits of turpentine.”
Go to the English Government, which, of course, is representative of the people, and ask, What is the use of juniper berries ? The answer is, To flavor gin with.
This is the gross abuse of juniper berries, with which an enlightened Government — if ever there shall be one — will have nothing to do.
Let us make distinctions, call things by the right names.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1860
November 14, 1853 ("From this hill I am struck with the smoothness and washed appearance of all the landscape. All these russet fields and swells look as if the withered grass had been combed by the flowing water. Not merely the sandy roads, but the fields are swept. All waters — the rivers and ponds and swollen brooks — and many new ones are now seen through the leafless trees — are blue reservoirs of dark indigo amid the general russet and reddish-brown and gray.")
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