Now is the time to set trees and consider what things you will plant in your garden.

April 30. 

2 P. M. Down the Boston road and across to Turnpike, etc., etc. 

The elms are now generally in blossom and Cheney's elm still also.

The last has leaf - buds which show the white.

Now, before any leaves have appeared, their blossoms clothe the trees with a rich, warm brown color, which serves partially for foliage to the street walker, and makes the tree more obvious. Held in the hand, the blossoms of some of the elms are quite rich and variegated, now purple and yellowish specked with the dark anthers and two light styles.

I know not why some should be so much earlier than others.

It is a beautiful day, - a mild air, — and all farmers and gardeners out and at work.

Now is the time to set trees and consider what things you will plant in your garden.

Yesterday I observed many fields newly plowed, the yellow soil looking very warm and dry in the sun; and one boy had fixed his handkerchief on a stick and elevated it on the yoke, where it flapped or streamed and rippled gayly in the wind, as he drove his oxen dragging a harrow over the plowed field.

I see now what I should call a small-sized bullfrog in the brook in front of Alcott's house that was.

The sweet gale is in blossom.  Its rich reddish-brown buds have expanded into yellowish and brown blossoms, all male blossoms that I see.  Those handsome buds that I have observed are the male blossom buds then. This has undoubtedly been in bloom a day or two in some places.

I saw yesterday a large-sized water-bug; to-day many in the brook; yesterday a trout; to-day shiners, I think.

The huckleberry-bird sings.

When I look, the inhabitants are beginning to plant in their gardens, the air is so fine and peculiar that I seem to see the hills and woods through a mirage. I am doubtful about their distance and exact form and elevation. The sound of a spade, too, sounds musical on the spring air.

(To-night for the first time I sit without a fire.)

One plower in a red flannel shirt, who looks picturesquely under the hill, suggests that our dress is not commonly of such colors as to adorn the landscape.

(To-night and last night the spearer's light is seen on the meadows; he has been delayed by the height of the water.)

I like very well to walk here on the low ground on the meadow; to see the churches and houses in the horizon against the sky and the now very blue Mt. Wachusett seeming to rise from amid them. When you get still further off on the lowest ground, you see distant barns and houses against the horizon, and the mountain appears to preside over this vale alone, which the adjacent hills on right and left fence in.

The season advances by fits and starts; you would not believe that there could be so many degrees to it. If you have had foul and cold weather, still some advance has been made, as you find when the fair weather comes, new lieferungs of warmth and summeriness, which make yesterday seem far off and the dog-days or midsummer incredibly nearer.

Yesterday I would not have believed that there could have been such an improvement on that day as this is, short of midsummer or June.

My pocket being full of the flowers of the maple, elm, etc., my handkerchief by its fragrance reminded me of some fruitful or flowery bank, I know not where.

A pleasant little

green knoll north of the Turnpike

near the Lincoln line.

I thought that the greenness of the sward there on the highest ground was occasioned by the decay of the roots of two oaks, whose old stumps still remained.

The greenness covered a circle about two rods in diameter.

It was too late to feel the influence of the drip of the trees.

We have had no such summer heat this year (unless when I was burned in the Deep Cut), yet there is an agreeable balmy wind.

I see here, while looking for the first violet, those little heaps made by the mole cricket (?), or by worms (?)

I observe to-day the bright-crimson (?) perfect flowers of the maple, —  crimson styles, sepals, and petals (crimson or scarlet ?), — whose leaves are not yet very handsome in the rain as you look to the sky; and the hum of small bees from them. So much color have they.


Crossing the Turnpike, we entered Smith's high lands.

Dodging behind a swell of land to avoid the men who were plowing, I saw unexpectedly (when I looked to see if we were concealed by the field) the blue mountains' line in the west (the whole intermediate earth and towns being concealed), this greenish field for a foreground sloping upward a few rods, and then those grand mountains seen over it in the background, so blue, — seashore, earth-shore, — and, warm as it is, covered with snow which reflected the sun.

Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes.  Such a sight excites me.

The earth is worthy to inhabit.

The far river-reach from this hill.

It is not so placid a blue as if with a film of azure over it to-day, however. The more remote the water, the lighter the blue, perchance.

It is like a lake in Tartary; there our camels will find water.

Here is a rock made to sit on, — large and inviting, which you do not fear to crush.

I hear the flicker and the huckleberry bird.

Yet no leaves apparent.

This in some measure corresponds to the fine afternoon weather after the leaves have fallen, though there is a different kind of promise now than then.  We are now going out into the field to work; then we were going into the house to think.

I love to see alders and dogwood instead of peach trees.

May we not see the melted snow lapsing over the rocks on the mountains in the sun, as well as snow? The white surfaces appear declivitous.

While we sit here, I hear for the first time the flies buzz so dronishly in the air.

I see travellers like mere dark objects in the yellow road afar, — the Turnpike.

Hosmer's house and cottage under its elms and on the summit of green smooth slopes looks like a terrestrial paradise, the abode of peace and domestic happiness.

Far over the woods westward, a shining vane, glimmering in the sun.

At Saw Mill Run the swamp (?) gooseberry (is it?) is partly leaved out.

This, being in the shade of the woods, and not, like the thimble-berry, in a warm and sunny place, methinks is the earliest shrub or tree that shows leaves. [The Missouri currant in gardens is equally forward; the cultivated gooseberry nearly so; the lilac not so.]

The neatly and closely folded, plaited, leaves of the hellebore are rather handsome objects now.

As you pull them apart, they emit a slight marshy scent, somewhat like the skunk-cabbage.

They are tender and dewy within, folded fan-like.

I hear a wood thrush here, with a fine metallic ring to his note. This sound most adequately expresses the immortal beauty and wildness of the woods.

I go in search of him. He sounds no nearer.

On a low bough of a small maple near the brook in the swamp, he sits with ruffled feathers, singing more low or with less power, as it were ventriloquizing; for though I am scarcely more than a rod off, he seems further off than ever.

Caught three little peeping frogs.

When I approached, and my shadow fell on the water, I heard a peculiarly trilled and more rapidly vibrated note, somewhat, in kind, like that which a hen makes to warn her chickens when a hawk goes over, and most stopped peeping; another trill, and all stopped.

It seemed to be a note of alarm.

I caught one. It proved to be two coupled. They remained together in my hand.

This sound has connection with their loves probably.

(I hear a trilled sound from a frog this evening. It is my dreaming midsummer frog, and he seems to be toward the depot.) 

I find them generally sitting on the dead leaves near the water's edge, from which they leap into the water.
 

On the hill behind Hosmer's, half an hour before sunset --  

The hill on the Boston road is very handsome with its regular promontories, and the smokes seen against it rising from the chimneys, what time the laborer takes his tea.

The robins sing power fully on the elms; the little frogs peep; the woodpecker's harsh and long-continued cry is heard from the woods; the huckleberry-bird's simple, sonorous trill.

The plowed land shines where a drag has passed over it.

It is a pleasant place for a house, because you overlook the road, and the near land seems to run into the meadow.

Saw male willow catkins in Tuttle's lane, now just out of bloom, about two inches long.

The flower of some of the earliest elms is by no means to be despised at this season.

It is conspicuous and rich in any nosegay that can now be made.

The female plants of the sweet-gale are rare (?) here. The scales of the male catkins are "set with amber-colored resinous dots” (Emerson).


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 30, 1852

The sweet gale is in blossom. Its rich reddish-brown buds have expanded into yellowish and brown blossoms, all male blossoms that I see. See April 13, 1860 ("– I go up the Assabet to look at the sweet-gale, which is . . . abundantly out at Pinxter Swamp."); April 22, 1855 ("The blossoms of the sweet-gale are now on fire over the brooks, contorted like caterpillars.") December 31, 1859 ("The oblong-conical sterile flower-buds or catkins of the sweet-gale, half a dozen at the end of each black twig, dark-red, oblong-conical, spotted with black, and about half an inch long, are among the most interesting buds of the winter. . . . The sterile and fertile flowers are not only on distinct plants, but they commonly grow in distinct patches. . . . It grows along the wet edge of banks and the river and in open swamps.")

The huckleberry-bird sings. See April 27, 1852 ("Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird." It sits on a birch and sings at short intervals, apparently answered from a distance. It is clear and sonorous heard afar; but I found it quite impossible to tell from which side it came; sounding like phe, phe, phe, pher-pher-tw-tw-tw-t-t-t-t, — the first three slow and loud, the next two syllables quicker, and the last part quicker and quicker, becoming a clear, sonorous trill or rattle, like a spoon in a saucer.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow

The season advances by fits and starts. . . lieferungs of warmth and summeriness, which make yesterday seem far off and the dog-days or midsummer incredibly nearer. See April 25, 1854 ("The summer approaches by almost insensibly increasing lieferungs of heat, each awakening some new bird or quadruped or reptile.")

So much color have they. See April 29, 1856 ("How pretty a red maple in bloom (they are now in prime), seen in the sun against a pine wood, . . . they are of so cheerful and lively a color."); April 29, 1859 ("Those red maples are reddest in which the fertile flowers prevail.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes. See June 30, 1852 (" Moon nearly full; rose a little before sunset. . . . At first a mere white cloud."); See also April 12, 1851 (" I realize that I may not see her again in her glory this night, that. . . the sun will have risen, and she will appear but as a cloud herself, and sink unnoticed into the west.")

To see the churches and houses in the horizon against the sky and the now very blue Mt. Wachusett seeming to rise from amid them. See 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.")

On the hill behind Hosmer's, half an hour before sunset --See May 17, 1853 ("Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds — that partakes of the light of the day and the stillness of the night")