August 25.
Warmer to-day. Surveying Tuttle’s farm.
From the extreme eastern side of his farm, looking up the valley of the Mill Brook, in which direction it is about two miles to anything that can be called high ground (say at E. Wood’s), I was surprised to see the whole outline and greater part of the base of Wachusett, though you stand in a low meadow.
 |
| Wachusett from Fair Haven Hill, August 2, 1852 |
It is because of the great distance of the hills westward. It is a fuller view of this mountain than many of our hills afford. Seen through this lower stratum, the mountain is a very dark blue.
I am struck by the rank growth of weeds at this season. Passing over Tuttle’s farm, only one field removed from the Turnpike, where various kinds of tall, rank weeds are rampant, half concealing the lusty crops, — low ground which has only been cultivated twice before, where turnips and algæ (?) contend for places, fire-weeds (senecio), thoroughwort, Eupatorium purpureum, and giant asters, etc., suggest a vigor in the soil, an Ohio fertility, which I was not prepared for, which on the sandy turnpike I had not suspected, — it seemed to me that I had not enough frequented and considered the products, perchance, of these fertile grounds which the farmers have enriched.
He is continually selecting a virgin soil and adding the contents of his barn-yards to it.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 25, 1853
Seen through this lower stratum, the mountain is a very dark blue. See November 13, 1851("The mountains are of an uncommonly dark blue to-day. Perhaps this is owing . . . to the greater clearness of the atmosphere, which brings them nearer"); March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'); September 27, 1853 ("From our native hills we look out easily to the far blue mountains, which seem to preside over them."); December 27, 1853 ("The outline of the mountains is wonderfully distinct and hard, and they are a dark blue and very near. Wachusett looks like a right whale over our bow, plowing the continent, with his flukes well down")
Tuttle’s farm, where various kinds of tall, rank weeds are rampant. See August 26, 1853 ("The fall dandelion is as conspicuous and abundant now in Tuttle's meadow as buttercups in the spring. It takes their place")
Seen through this lower stratum, the mountain is a very dark blue. See November 13, 1851("The mountains are of an uncommonly dark blue to-day. Perhaps this is owing . . . to the greater clearness of the atmosphere, which brings them nearer"); March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'); September 27, 1853 ("From our native hills we look out easily to the far blue mountains, which seem to preside over them."); December 27, 1853 ("The outline of the mountains is wonderfully distinct and hard, and they are a dark blue and very near. Wachusett looks like a right whale over our bow, plowing the continent, with his flukes well down")
Tuttle’s farm, where various kinds of tall, rank weeds are rampant. See August 26, 1853 ("The fall dandelion is as conspicuous and abundant now in Tuttle's meadow as buttercups in the spring. It takes their place")
No comments:
Post a Comment