March 12.
I have learned in a shorter time and more accurately the meaning of the scientific terms used in botany from a few plates of figures at the end of the “Philosophia Botanica," with the names annexed, than a volume of explanations or glossaries could teach.
And, that the alternate pages to the plates may not be left blank, he has given on them very concise and important instruction to students of botany.
This lawgiver of science, this systematizer, this methodist, carries his system into his studies in the field.
On one of these little pages he gives some instruction concerning herbatio, or what the French called herborisations, — we say botanizing.
Into this he introduces law and order and system, and describes with the greatest economy of words what some would have required a small volume to tell, all on a small page; tells what dress you shall wear, what instruments you shall carry, what season and hour you shall observe, - viz. “from the leafing of the trees, Sirius excepted, to the fall of the leaf, twice a week in summer, once in spring, from seven in the morning till seven at night," – when you shall dine and take your rest, etc., in a crowd or dispersed, etc., how far shall go, –two miles and a half at most, – what you shall collect and what kind of observations make, etc. etc.
Railroad to Walden, 3 P. M.
I see the Populus (apparently tremuloides, not grandidentata) at the end of the railroad causeway, showing the down of its ament.
Bigelow makes it flower in April, the grandidentata in May.
I see the sand flowing in the Cut and hear the harp at the same time.
Who shall say that the primitive forces are not still at work? Nature has not lost her pristine vigor, neither has he who sees this.
To see the first dust fly is a pleasant sight. I saw it on the east side of the Deep Cut.
These heaps of sand foliage remind me of the laciniated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of some lichens, — somewhat linear-laciniate. It cannot make much odds what the sand is, for I have seen it in the soil of our garden. They come out from the interior of the earth like bowels — a rupture in the spring - and bury the snow. The crust of the snow is completely concealed with the sand for an eighth of a mile.
They also remind me sometimes of masses of rockweed on the rocks.
At any moment the creative stream will be seen flowing in a restricted channel or artery, but it is forming new lobes, and at last, in the ditch, it forms sands, as at the mouths of rivers, in which the outlines of the different lobes are almost lost, are dissipated into mere shaded outlines on the flat floor.
Bent has left the chestnuts about Walden till the sap is well up, that the bark may peel. He has cut the other trees.
I saw the ants crawling about torpidly on the stump of an oak which had been sawed this winter. The choppers think they have seen them a fortnight.
The whistling of the wind, which makes one melancholy, inspires another.
The little grain of wheat, triticum, is the noblest food of man.
The lesser grains of other grasses are the food of passerine birds at present. Their diet is like man's.
The gods can never afford to leave a man in the world who is privy to any of their secrets. They cannot have a spy here. They will at once send him packing.
How can you walk on ground when you see through it?
To see the first dust fly is a pleasant sight. I saw it on the east side of the Deep Cut.
These heaps of sand foliage remind me of the laciniated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of some lichens, — somewhat linear-laciniate. It cannot make much odds what the sand is, for I have seen it in the soil of our garden. They come out from the interior of the earth like bowels — a rupture in the spring - and bury the snow. The crust of the snow is completely concealed with the sand for an eighth of a mile.
They also remind me sometimes of masses of rockweed on the rocks.
At any moment the creative stream will be seen flowing in a restricted channel or artery, but it is forming new lobes, and at last, in the ditch, it forms sands, as at the mouths of rivers, in which the outlines of the different lobes are almost lost, are dissipated into mere shaded outlines on the flat floor.
Bent has left the chestnuts about Walden till the sap is well up, that the bark may peel. He has cut the other trees.
I saw the ants crawling about torpidly on the stump of an oak which had been sawed this winter. The choppers think they have seen them a fortnight.
The whistling of the wind, which makes one melancholy, inspires another.
The little grain of wheat, triticum, is the noblest food of man.
The lesser grains of other grasses are the food of passerine birds at present. Their diet is like man's.
The gods can never afford to leave a man in the world who is privy to any of their secrets. They cannot have a spy here. They will at once send him packing.
How can you walk on ground when you see through it?
The telegraph harp has spoken to me more distinctly and effectually than any man ever did.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 12, 1852
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 12, 1852
I have learned in a shorter time and more accurately the meaning of the scientific terms used in botany. See February 17 1852 ("If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnaeus at once . . .His "Philosophia Botanica," . . . is simpler, more easy to understand, and more comprehensive, than any of the hundred manuals to which it has given birth. A few pages of cuts representing the different parts of plants, with the botanical names attached, is worth whole volumes of explanation.");. See also note to March 1,1852 ("Linnæus, speaking of the necessity of precise and adequate terms in any science")
I see the Populus (apparently tremuloides, not grandidentata) at the end of the railroad causeway , showing the down of its ament.Bigelow makes it flower in April.. See March 27, 1859 ("Of our seven indigenous flowers which begin to bloom in March, four, i. e. the two alders, the aspen, and the hazel, are not generally noticed so early, if at all"); April 9, 1856 ("Early aspen catkins have curved downward an inch, and began to shed pollen apparently yesterday") See aslo A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens
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