Cooler to-day, yet pleasant.
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| October 21, 2018 |
Most leaves now on the water. They fell yesterday, — white and red maple, swamp white oak, white birch, black and red oak, hemlock (which has begun to fall), hop-hornbeam, etc., etc. They cover the water thickly, concealing all along the south side for half a rod to a rod in width, and at the rocks, where they are met and stopped by the easterly breeze, form a broad and dense crescent quite across the river.
On the hilltop, the sun having just risen, I see on my note-book that same rosy or purple light, when contrasted with the shade of another leaf, which I saw on the evening of the 19th, though perhaps I can detect a little purple in the eastern horizon.
The Populus grandidentata is quite yellow and leafy yet,— the most showy tree thereabouts.
P. M. — Up Assabet, for a new mast, the old being broken in passing under a bridge.
Talked with the lame Haynes, the fisherman. He feels sure that they were not “suckers” which I saw rise to the shad-flies, but chivin, and that suckers do not rise to a fly nor leap out.
He has seen a great many little lamprey eels come down the rivers, about as long as his finger, attached to shad. But never knew the old to come down. Thinks they die attached to roots. Has seen them half dead thus. Says the spawn is quite at the bottom of the heap. Like Witherell, he wonders how the eels increase, since he could never find any spawn in them.
The large sugar maples on the Common are in the midst of their fall to-day.
H. D.. Thoreau, Journal, October 21, 1858
Up Assabet. Most leaves now on the water. They cover the water thickly See October 12, 1855 ("The leaves fallen last night now lie thick on the water next the shore, concealing it, “); October 15, 1856 ("Large fleets of maple and other leaves are floating on its surface as I go up the Assabet. . ."); October 17, 1856 ("Countless leafy skiffs are floating on pools and lakes and rivers and in the swamps and meadows, often concealing the water quite from foot and eye."); October 17, 1857("The swamp floor is covered with red maple leaves, many yellow with bright-scarlet spots or streaks. Small brooks are almost concealed by them”) ; October 17, 1858 (" Up Assabet. There are many crisped but colored leaves resting on the smooth surface of the Assabet,”); October 19, 1853 ("The leaves have fallen so plentifully that they quite conceal the water along the shore, and rustle pleasantly when the wave which the boat creates strikes them.”)
The Populus grandidentata is quite yellow and leafy yet. See October 16, 1857 (“The large poplar (P. grandidentata) is now at the height of its change, – clear yellow, but many leaves have fallen.”); Also October 18, 1853 (“clear, rich yellow.”); October 25, 1858 (“The leaves of the Populus grandidentata, though half fallen and turned a pure and handsome yellow, are still wagging as fast as ever. .. . I do not think of any tree whose leaves are so fresh and fair when they fall.”); October 28, 1858 (“Its leaves are large and conspicuous on the ground, and from their freshness make a great show there”); November 22, 1853 ("I was just thinking it would be fine to get a specimen leaf from each changing tree and shrub and plant in autumn, in September and October, when it had got its brightest characteristic color . . . I remember especially the beautiful yellow of the Populus grandidentata...”)
The large sugar maples on the Common are in the midst of their fall to-day. See. October 6, 1858 ("only one of the large maples on the Common is yet on fire. "); October 18, 1856 ("The sugar maples are now in their glory, all aglow with yellow, red, and green.”); October 18, 1858 ("The large sugar maples on the Common are now at the height of their beauty. “); October 24, 1855 (“The rich yellow and scarlet leaves of the sugar maple on the Common now thickly cover the grass in great circles about the trees, and, half having fallen, look like the reflection of the trees ")
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