Nature improves this her last opportunity to empty her lap of flowers.

September 13. 

September 13, 2016

Saturday. At Concord. — After all, I am struck by the greater luxuriance of the same species of plants here than up-country, though our soil is considered leaner.

Also I think that no view I have had of the Connecticut Valley, at Brattleboro or Walpole, is equal to that of the Concord from Nawshawtuct. Here is a more interesting horizon, more variety and richness. 

Our river is much the most fertile in every sense. Up there it is nothing but river-valley and hills. Here there is so much more that we have forgotten that we live in a valley. 

8 a. m. — Up Assabet. 

Gather quite a parcel of grapes, quite ripe. Difficult to break off the large bunches without some dropping off. Yet the best are more admirable for fragrance than for flavor. Depositing them in the bows of the boat, they fill all the air with their fragrance, as we row along against the wind, as if we were rowing through an endless vineyard in its maturity. 

The Aster Tradescanti now sugars the banks densely, since I left, a week ago. Nature improves this her last opportunity to empty her lap of flowers. 

Ascend the hill. 

The barberries are abundant there, and already handsomely red, though not much more than half turned. 

Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill, about the oaks. Never saw them thicker in a meadow. A cool, spring-suggesting yellow. They reserve their force till this season, though they begin so early. Cool to the eye, as the creak of the cricket to the ear. 

The Viburnum Lentago, which I left not half turned red when I went up-country a week ago, are now quite black-purple and shrivelled like raisins on my table, and sweet to taste, though chiefly seed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 13, 1856

Depositing them in the bows of the boat, they fill all the air with their fragrance, . . . as if we were rowing through an endless vineyard in its maturity. See September 8, 1854 ("As I paddle home with my basket of grapes in the bow, every now and then their perfume was wafted to me in the stern, and I think that I am passing a richly laden vine on shore.")

Barberries. . . already handsomely red, though not much more than half turned. See September 13, 1852 ("The barberries, now reddening, begin to show."). See also October 1, 1853 (" Got three pecks of barberries.") and September 25, 1855 (We get about three pecks of barberries from four or five bushes”). September 18, 1856 ("I get a full peck from about three bushes.”)

Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime . . .. They reserve their force till this season . . .See September 13, 1852  ("How earnestly and rapidly each creature, each flower, is fulfilling its part while its day lasts! . . .")