First snow.

November 24.

P. M. - To Easterbrooks's. 

Under the two white oaks by the second wall south east of my house, on the east side the wall, I am surprised to find a great many sound acorns still, though everyone is sprouted, — frequently more than a dozen on the short sward within a square foot, each with its radicle two inches long penetrated into the earth. 

But many have had their radicle broken or eaten off, and many have it now dead and withered. 

So far as my observation goes there, by far the greatest number of white oak acorns were destroyed by decaying (whether in consequence of frost or wet), both before and soon after falling. 

Not nearly so many have been carried off by squirrels and birds or consumed by grubs, though the number of acorns of all kinds lying under the trees is now comparatively small to what it was early in October. 

It is true these two trees are exceptions and I do not find sound ones nearly as numerous under others. Nevertheless, the sound white oak acorns are not so generally and entirely picked up as I supposed. 

However, there are a great many more shells or cups than acorns under the trees; even under these two trees, I think, there are not more than a third as many of any kind sound or hollow — as there were, and generally those that remain are a very small fraction of what there were. 

It will be worth the while to see how many of these sprouted acorns are left and are sound in the spring. 

It is remarkable that all sound white oak acorns (and many which are not now sound) are sprouted, and that I have noticed no other kind sprouted, — though I have not seen the chestnut oak and little chinquapin at all. 

It remains to be seen how many of the above will be picked up by squirrels, etc., or destroyed by frost and grubs in the winter.




The first spitting of snow — a flurry or squall – from out a gray or slate-colored cloud that came up from the west. This consisted almost entirely of pellets an eighth of an inch or less in diameter. 

These drove along almost horizontally, or curving upward like the outline of a breaker, before the strong and chilling wind. The plowed fields were for a short time whitened with them. 

The green moss about the bases of trees was very prettily spotted white with them, and also the large beds of cladonia in the pastures. They come to contrast with the red cockspur lichens on the stumps, which you had not noticed before. Striking against the trunks of the trees on the west side they fell and accumulated in a white line at the base. 

Though a slight touch, this was the first wintry scene of the season. 

The air was so filled with these snow pellets that we could not not see a hill half a mile off for an hour. 

The hands seek the warmth of the pockets, and fingers are so benumbed that you cannot open your jack-knife. 

The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you. Methinks the winter gives them more liberty, like a night. 

I see where a boy has set a box trap and baited it with half an apple, and, a mile off, come across a snare set for a rabbit or partridge in a cow-path in a pitch pine wood near where the rabbits have nibbled the apples which strew the wet ground. How pitiable that the most that many see of a rabbit should be the snare that some boy has set for one! 




The bitter-sweet of a white oak acorn which you nibble in a bleak November walk over the tawny earth is more to me than a slice of imported pineapple. 

We do not think much of table-fruits. They are especially for aldermen and epicures. They do not feed the imagination. That would starve on them. These wild fruits, whether eaten or not, are a dessert for the imagination. 

The south may keep her pineapples, and we will be content with our strawberries. 



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 24, 1860 

I am surprised to find a great many sound acorns still, each with its radicle two inches long penetrated into the earth. It is remarkable that all sound white oak acorns (and many which are not now sound) are sprouted, and that I have noticed no other kind sprouted.  See October 7, 1860 ("I see one small but spreading white oak full of acorns just falling and ready to fall. . . . Some that have fallen have already split and sprouted.”); October 8, 1860 ("I find a great many white oak acorns already sprouted, although they are but half fallen, and can easily believe that they sometimes sprout before they fall. It is a good year for them."); October 11, 1860 ("There is a remarkably abundant crop of white oak acorns this fall."); October 13, 1860 ("This is a white oak year"); October 29, 1860 ("At some of the white oaks visited on the 11th, where the acorns were so thick on the ground and trees, I now find them perhaps nearly half picked up, yet perhaps little more than two thirds spoiled. The good appear to be all sprouted now."); and note to November 27, 1852 (“I find acorns which have sent a shoot down into the earth this fall.”)

The first spitting of snow. The hands seek the warmth of the pockets, and fingers are so benumbed that you cannot open your jack-knife. See November 24, 1858 ("There is a slight sugaring of snow on the ground. ") See also November 17, 1855 ("Just after dark the first snow is falling, after a chilly afternoon with cold gray clouds, when my hands were uncomfortably cold.”) and note to November 29, 1856 ("This the first snow I have seen, ")

The air was so filled with these snow pellets that for an hour we could not see a hill half a mile off. See January 30, 1856 ("It has just begun to snow, — those little round dry pellets like shot. Stops snowing before noon, not having amounted to anything.”); December 14, 1859( Snow-storms might be classified. . . .Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot. This, I think, belongs to cold weather. Probably never have much of it.”)

The plowed fields were for a short time whitened. See November 24, 1858 (“Plowed ground is quite white”); See also  October 19, 1854 (“The country above Littleton (plowed ground) more or less sugared with snow,”); November 8, 1853 ("The snow begins to whiten the plowed ground now."); December 16, 1857 ("Plowed grounds show white first.”)

Snow pellets . . .contrast with the red cockspur lichens on the stumps, not noticed before. See December 26, 1855 ("The scarlet fruit of the cockspur lichen, seen glowing through the more opaque whitish or snowy crust of a stump, is, on close inspection, the richest sight of all ”)

The first wintry scene of the season. The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you. See November 24, 1858 ("When I looked out this morning, the landscape presented a very pretty wintry sight, little snow as there was. Being very moist, it had lodged on every twig,") See also November 8, 1853 (“Our first snow,. . . The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess. ”); November 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and Nature seems to relent a little of her November harshness.")

The winter gives them more liberty, like a night. See December 8, 1850 ("The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!”)