A river, with its waterfalls and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient trees standing singly.

January 3.

The third considerable snow-storm.

The berries which I celebrate appear to have a range -- most of them — very nearly coterminous with what has been called the Algonquin Family of Indians, whose territories are now occupied by the Eastern, Middle, and Northwestern States and the Canadas, and completely surrounded those of the Iroquois, who occupied what is now the State of New York. These were the small fruits of the Algonquin and Iroquois families. The Algonquins appear to have described this kind of fruits generally by words ending in the syllables meenar.

It is true we have in the Northern States a few wild plums and inedible crab-apples, a few palatable grapes and nuts, but I think that our various species of berries are our wild fruits to be compared with the more celebrated ones of the tropics, and that, taking all things into consideration, New England will bear comparison with the West India Islands. I have not heard of any similar amusement there superior to huckleberrying here, the object not being merely to get a shipload of something which you can eat or sell.

Why should the Ornamental Tree Society confine its labors to the highway only? An Englishman laying out his ground does not regard simply the avenues and walks.

Does not the landscape deserve attention? What are the natural features which make a township handsome? A river, with its waterfalls and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient trees standing singly. Such things are beautiful; they have a high use which dollars and cents never represent.

If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve these things, though at a considerable expense; for such things educate far more than any hired teachers or preachers, or any at present recognized system of school education.

I do not think him fit to be the founder of a state or even of a town who does not foresee the use of these things, but legislates chiefly for oxen, as it were.

Far the handsomest thing I saw in Boxboro was its noble oak wood. I doubt if there is a finer one in Massachusetts. Let her keep it a century longer, and men will make pilgrimages to it from all parts of the country; and yet it would be very like the rest of New England if Boxboro were ashamed of that woodland. I have since heard, however, that she is contented to have that forest stand instead of the houses and farms that might supplant [i ], because the land pays a much larger tax to the town now than it would then. I said to myself, if the history of this town is written, the chief stress is probably laid on its parish and there is not a word about this forest in it.

It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment.

If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps. As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public. Not only the channel but one or both banks of every river should be a public highway. The only use of a river is not to float on it. 

Think of a mountain-top in the township -- even to the minds of the Indians a sacred place — only accessible through private grounds! a temple, as it were, which you cannot enter except by trespassing and at the risk of letting out or letting in somebody's cattle! in fact the temple itself in this case private property and standing in a man's cow-yard,-for such is commonly the case! 

New Hampshire courts have lately been deciding-as if it was for them to decide whether the top of Mt. Washington belonged to A or to B; and, it being decided in favor of B, as I hear, he went up one winter with the proper officer and took formal possession of it.

But I think that the top of Mt. Washington should not be private property; it should be left unappropriated for modesty and reverence's sake, or if only to suggest that earth has higher uses than we put her to.

I know it is a mere figure of speech to talk about temples nowadays, when men recognize none, and, indeed, associate the word with heathenism.

It is true we as yet take liberties and go across lots, and steal, or "hook," a good many things, but we naturally take fewer and fewer liberties every year, as we meet with more resistance.

In old countries, as England, going across lots is out of the question. You must walk in some beaten path or other, though it may [ be ] a narrow one.

We are tending to the same state of things here, when practically a few will have grounds of their own, but most will have none to walk over but what the few allow them. Thus we behave like oxen in a flower-garden.

The true fruit of Nature can only be plucked with a delicate hand not bribed by any earthly reward, and a fluttering heart. No hired man can help us to gather this crop.

How few ever get beyond feeding, clothing, sheltering, and warming themselves in this world, and begin to treat themselves as human beings, as intellectual and moral beings! Most seem not to see any further, not to see over the ridge-pole of their barns, - - or to be exhausted and accomplish nothing more than a full barn, though it may be accompanied by an empty head.

They venture a little, run some risks, when it is a question of a larger crop of corn or potatoes; but they are commonly timid and count their coppers, when the question is whether their children shall be educated.

He who has the reputation of being the thriftiest farmer and making the best bargains is really the most thrift less and makes the worst.

It is safest to invest in knowledge, for the probability is that you can carry that with you wherever you go.

But most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum — many for a glass of rum.

Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth ! We are safe on that side for the present. 

It is for the very reason that some do not care for those things that we need to continue to protect all from the vandalism of a few.

We cut down the few old oaks which witnessed the transfer of the township from the Indian to the white man, and commence our museum with a cartridge-box taken from a British soldier in 1775! 

He pauses at the end of his four or five thousand dollars, and then only fears that he has not got enough to carry him through, -- that is, merely to pay for what he will eat and wear and burn and for his lodging for the rest of his life. But, pray, what does he stay here for?

Suicide would be cheaper. Indeed, it would be nobler to found some good institution with the money and then cut your throat.

If such is the whole upshot of their living, I think that it would be most profitable for all such to be carried or put through by being discharged from the mouth of a cannon as fast as they attained to years of such discretion.

As boys are sometimes required to show an excuse for being absent from school, so it seems to me that men should show some excuse for being here. Move along; you may come upon the town, sir.

I noticed a week or two ago that one of my white pines, some six feet high with a thick top, was bent under a great burden of very moist snow, almost to the point of breaking, so that an ounce more of weight would surely have broken it. As I was confined to the house by sickness, and the tree had already been four or five days in that position, I despaired of its ever recovering itself; but, greatly to my surprise, when, a few days after, the snow had melted off, I saw the tree almost perfectly upright again.

It is evident that trees will bear to be bent by this cause and at this season much more than by the hand of man. Probably the less harm is done in the first place by the weight being so gradually applied, and perhaps the tree is better able to bear it at this season of the year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 3, 1861

The berries which I celebrate. See The Whortleberry Family

Far the handsomest thing I saw in Boxboro was its noble oak wood. See October 23, 1860 ("[Anthony Wright] tells me of a noted large and so-called primitive wood, Inches Wood, between the Harvard turnpike and Stow, sometimes called Stow Woods"); November 9, 1860 ("There may be a thousand? acres of old oak wood.); November 10, 1860 ("I have lived so long in this neighborhood and but just heard of this noble forest, - - probably as fine an oak wood as there is in New England, only eight miles west of me. Seeing this, I can realize how this country appeared when it was discovered - - a full-grown oak forest stretching uninterrupted for miles, consisting of sturdy trees from one to three and even four feet in diameter, whose interlacing branches form a complete and uninterrupted canopy"); November 16, 1860 ("There being hills, dells, moraines, meadows, swamps, and a fine brook in the midst of all. . . .Nowhere any monotony. It is very pleasant, as you walk in the shade below, to see the cheerful sunlight reflected from the maze of oak boughs above.")

If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve these things. See January 22, 1852 ("Methinks the town should have more supervision and control over its parks than it has. It concerns us all whether these proprietors choose to cut down all the woods this winter or not."); Walking ("A town is saved by the woods and swamps that surround it.”); October 15, 1859 ("Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation.")

But I think that the top of Mt. Washington should not be private property. See Ownership History of the Mount Washington Summit (2018) ("The State [is now] the fee owner of almost all of the Mount Washington Summit.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 3

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023