How unwearied Nature is, spreading her seeds.

March 2.

Has snowed three or four inches —very damp snow — in the night; stops about 9 A. M. This will probably help carry off the old snow, so solid and deep. 

P. M. —Walking up the river by Prichard's, was surprised to see, on the snow over the river, a great many seeds and scales of birches, though the snow had so recently fallen, there had been but little wind, and it was already spring. There was one seed or scale to a square foot, yet the nearest birches were, about fifteen of them, along the wall thirty rods east.

As I advanced toward them, the seeds became thicker and thicker, till they quite discolored the snow half a dozen rods distant, while east of the birches there was not one. The birches appear not to have lost a quarter of their seeds yet. 

As I went home up the river, I saw some of the seeds forty rods off, and perhaps, in a more favorable direction, I might have found them much further. 

It suggested how unwearied Nature is, spreading her seeds. Even the spring does not find her unprovided with birch, aye, and alder and pine seed. A great proportion of the seed that was carried to a distance lodged in the hollow over the river, and when the river breaks up will be carried far away, to distant shores and meadows.

The opening in the river at Merrick’s is now increased to ten feet in width in some places. 

I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be beginning to build their nests now, yet their young were a fortnight old the last of April last year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 2, 1856

Seeds and scales of birches.  See January 7, 1856 ("I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch, and trace them north to it"); January 7, 1854 ("The bird-shaped scales of the white birch are blown more than twenty rods from the trees."); December 4, 1854("Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow"); November 4, 1860 ("The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.")

The opening in the river at Merrick’s.  See January 19, 1856 (“The only open place in the river between Hunt’s Bridge and the railroad bridge is a small space against Merrick’s pasture just below the Rock”); January 24, 1856(“You may walk anywhere on the river now. Even the open space against Merrick’s, below the Rock, has been closed again . . .”); January 26, 1856 (“ [The river is not open], excepting the small space against Merrick’s below the Rock (now closed), since January 7th, when it closed at the Hubbard Bath, or nearly three weeks, —a long time, methinks, for it to be frozen so solidly”);February 3, 1856 (River still tight at Merrick’s); February 22, 1856 ([T]he river is still perfectly closed (as it has been for many weeks), both against Merrick’s and in the Assabet, excepting directly under this upper stone bridge and probably at mouth of Loring’s Brook. I am surprised that the warm weather within ten days has not caused the river to open at Merrick’s, but it was too thick to be melted); February 27, 1856 (Am surprised to see how the ice lasts on the river. It but just begins to be open for a foot or two at Merrick’s, and you see the motion of the stream. It has been tight even there (and of course everywhere else on the main stream, and on North Branch except at Loring’s Brook and under stone bridge) since January 25^th…That is, we may say that the river has been frozen solidly for seven weeks.)

I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be beginning to build their nests now. See March 2, 1855 ("Hear two hawks scream. There is something truly March-like in it, like a prolonged blast or whistling of the wind through a crevice in the sky.”);