This is the end of the sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the year

October 10. 

October 10, 2017

P. M. — To Walden over Fair Haven Hill. 

Some Prinos verticillatus yellowing and browning at once, and in low ground just falling and leaving the bright berries bare. 

From the upper side of Wheeler's clearing on Fair Haven Hill, I see five smokes, now at 3.30 P. M., – one toward Lexington, one over Bedford, one over Billerica, one, very copious, as much further north, and one over Carlisle. These are all dark, seen against the sky and from the sun, and, except the first, apparently beyond the respective towns. Going over to the southwest side of the hill, I see one large widespread smoke toward Wachusett and rising against it, apparently beyond the height of land between the Concord and Nashua, and another much nearer, toward Stow. These two are light, or smoke-colored, because seen more toward the sun, perhaps; or is it solely because seen against the mountain and woods? There is another, the eighth, a little south of west, nearly under the sun, but this, being very distant and seen against the sky, is dusky. I could not see south and southwest. 

I think that these smokes are the most distant sign of the presence of man on the globe that I detect with my unarmed eye, – of man's cohabitancy. I see the evidence that so many farmers with their hired men and boys are at work in their clearings from five to fifteen miles off. I see this smoky telegraph for hours marking the locality and occupation of some farmer and suggesting peaceful rural enterprises and improvements which I may yet see described in the agricultural reports, though I may never have seen, and perhaps never shall see, that farm or farmer. Considering the slight evidence I have of their existence, they are as far away as if in another quarter of the globe. Some times the smoke is seen beyond a distant range of hills, spreading along, low and bluish, seen against a more distant hill or mountain; at others it is a column faintly and dimly seen against the horizon, but more distinctly revealed by a dusky but cloud-like expansion above. It may be a dusky almost level bar, slanting upward a little, like a narrow banner. 

The smokes from a dozen clearings far and wide, from a portion of the earth thirty miles or more in diameter, reveal the employment of many husbandmen at this season. Thus I see the woods burned up from year to year. The telltale smokes reveal it. The smokes will become rarer and thinner year by year, till I shall detect only a mere feathery film and there is no more brush to be burned. 

Generally speaking, the autumnal tints affect the color of the landscape for only two or three miles, but I distinguish maples by their color half a mile north of Brooks Clark’s, or some three miles distant, from this hill, — one further east very bright. Also I see them in the northeast, or on or near, apparently, a road between Bedford and Billerica, at least four or five miles distant!! This is the furthest I can see them. 

Descend from Fair Haven Hill through Stow's sprout-land to railroad. 

See chincapin oaks in frosty places sere brown and ready to fall, while in others they are still green, in woods. They turn of various colors, some quite handsome clear scarlet or red. Many young white oaks in similar frosty places are all withered and shrivelled. 

I see in the woods some Smilacina racemosa leaves, – which are usually a uniform pale-brown, — very wildly and remarkably marked, – weirdly. They are pale-brown, almost white, and somewhat curled, varied with rectilinear broad black (brown, seen close to) marks along the veins, say one inch, more or less, long by one tenth inch wide, with square corners. (Suppose you were to have a neckerchief after this pattern!) The whole plant gracefully bent almost horizontally with the weight of its dense raceme of bright cherry-red berries at the end. 

Generally speaking, chestnuts, hickories, aspens, and some other trees attain a fair clear yellow only in small specimens in the woods or sprout-lands, or in their lower leaves. 

You see now in sprout-lands young scarlet oaks of every degree of brightness from green to dark scarlet. It is a beautifully formed leaf, with its broad, free, open sinuses, - worthy to be copied in sculpture. A very agreeable form, a bold, deep scallop, as if the material were cheap. Like tracery. The color is more mingled with light than in the less deeply scalloped oak leaves. It is a less simple form. Though the connected outline is a broad oval, it is much improved by deep bays of light, as a simple oval pond would be improved by four or five broad, rounded promontories extending far into it on different sides, while the watery bays, instead of being rounded at bottom, extended far inland in sharp friths. The leaf suggests a lavish expense in the creation of those deep scallops, as if so much material had been cut out and thrown away. 

This is the end of the sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the year, so bright and serene the air and such a sheen from the earth, so brilliant the foliage, so pleasantly warm (except, perhaps, this day, which is cooler), too warm for a thick coat, — yet not sultry nor oppressive, -so ripe the season and our thoughts. Certainly these are the most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this. As a dewy morning in the summer compared with a parched and sultry, languid one, so a frosty morning at this season compared with a merely dry or foggy one. These days you may say the year is ripened like a fruit by frost, and puts on brilliant tints of maturity but not yet of decay. It is not sere and withered as in November. 

See the heaps of apples in the fields and at the cider mill, of pumpkins in the fields, and the stacks of corn stalks and the standing corn. Such is the season. The morning frosts have left a silvery hue on the fine pasture grasses. They have faded to a kindred color.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 10, 1857

The smokes from a dozen clearings far and wide, from a portion of the earth thirty miles or more in diameter, reveal the employment of many husbandmen at this season. See September 3, 1860 (" Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, day . . .We see the smokes of burnings on various sides."); September 25, 1854 ("I see several smokes in the distance, of burning brush. . . . I now smell strongly the smoke of this burning half a mile off, though it is scarcely perceptible in the air."); October 13, 1852 ("Far amid the western hills there rises a pure white smoke. There is no disturbing sound.");

I see in the woods some Smilacina racemosa  leaves [false solomon's seal] . . . The whole plant gracefully bent almost horizontally with the weight of its dense raceme of bright cherry-red berries at the end. See September 18, 1856 ("Smilacina berries of both kinds now commonly ripe");September 1, 1856 ("The very dense clusters of the smilacina berries, finely purple-dotted on a pearly ground"); and note to June 19, 1856 ("Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms.)

This is the end of the sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the year, so bright and serene the air and such a sheen from the earth, so brilliant the foliage, so pleasantly warm . . . so ripe the season and our thoughts. Certainly these are the most brilliant days in the year. See  note to October 10, 1856 ("These are the finest days in the year, Indian Summer.") See also December 21, 1854 (“We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year ,ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning.”) and September 20, 1851 ("This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - cool and cloudless, bright days, filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes, preceded by frosty mornings.")