The mountains distinct
we see white sails on the lake
the first day of fall.
zphx – 20180922
September 22, 2018
September 22, 2026
Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Friday, October 16, 2020
The pines, too, have fallen.
October 16.
The ash and most of the elm trees are bare of leaves; the red maples also. See October 13, 1858 ("The elms are at least half bare. "); October 15, 1859 ("The ash trees I see to-day are quite bare,"); October 17, 1857 (“A great many more ash trees, elms, etc., are bare now.”); October 19, 1856 (“Both the white and black ash are quite bare, and some of the elms there.”); October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape"); October 26, 1854 ("Apple trees are generally bare, as well as bass, ash, elm, maple.")
October 16, 2014
In the streets the ash and most of the elm trees are bare of leaves; the red maples also for the most part, apparently, at a distance.
The pines, too, have fallen.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 16, 1854
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 16, 1854
The pines, too, have fallen. See October 16, 1855 ("How evenly the freshly fallen pine-needles are spread on the ground!"); October 16, 1857 ("A great part of the pine-needles have just fallen.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
It warms us twice, and the first warmth is the most wholesome and memorable
October 22
A week or more of fairest Indian summer ended last night, for to-day it rains. It was so warm day before yesterday, I worked in my shirt-sleeves in the woods.
I cannot easily dismiss the subject of the fallen leaves.
How densely they cover and conceal the water for several feet in width, under and amid the alders and button-bushes and maples along the shore of the river, — still light, tight, and dry boats, dense cities of boats, their fibres not relaxed by the waters, undulating and rustling with every wave, of such various pure and delicate, though fading, tints, — of hues that might make the fame of teas, — dried on great Nature's coppers.
And then see this great fleet of scattered leaf boats, still tight and dry, each one curled up on every side by the sun's skill, like boats of hide, scarcely moving in the sluggish current, — like the great fleets with which you mingle on entering some great mart, some New York which we are all approaching together.
Or else they are slowly moving round in some great eddy which the river makes, where the water is deep and the current is wearing into the bank. How gently each has been deposited on the water! No violence has been used toward them yet. But next the shore, as thick as foam they float, and when you turn your prow that way, list! what a rustling of the crisped waves!
Wet grounds about the edges of swamps look dry with them, and many a wet foot you get in consequence.
Consider what a vast crop is thus annually shed upon the earth. This, more than any mere grain or seed, is the great harvest of the year. This annual decay and death, this dying by inches, before the whole tree at last lies down and turns to soil. As trees shed their leaves, so deer their horns, and men their hair or nails. The year's great crop.
I am more interested in it than in the English grass alone or in the corn. It prepares the virgin mould for future corn fields on which the earth fattens. They teach us how to die. How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! A myriad wrappers for germinating seeds. By what subtle chemistry they will mount up again, climbing by the sap in the trees.
The ground is all parti-colored with them. For beautiful variety can any crop be compared with them? The dogwood (poison sumach) blazing its sins as scarlet, the early-blushing maple, the rich chrome (?) yellow of the poplar, the mulberry ash, the brilliant red huckleberry with which the hills' backs are painted like sheep's, — not merely the plain flavidness of corn, but all the colors of the rainbow.
The salmon-colored oaks, etc., etc. The frost touches them, and, with the slightest breath of day or jarring of earth's axle, see in what showers they come floating down, at the first earnest touch of autumn's wand.
They stoop to rise, to mount higher in coming years by subtiler chemistry, and the sapling's first fruits, thus shed, transmuted at last, may adorn its crown, when, in after years, it has become the monarch of the forest.
Yesterday, toward night, gave Sophia and mother a sail as far as the Battle-Ground. One-eyed John Goodwin, the fisherman, was loading into a hand-cart and conveying home the piles of driftwood which of late he had collected with his boat. It was a beautiful evening, and a clear amber sunset lit up all the eastern shores; and that man's employment, so simple and direct, — though he is regarded by most as a vicious character, — whose whole motive was so easy to fathom, — thus to obtain his winter's wood, — charmed me unspeakably.
So much do we love actions that are simple. They are all poetic. We, too, would fain be so employed.
So unlike the pursuits of most men, so artificial or complicated. Consider how the broker collects his winter's wood, what sport he makes of it, what is his boat and hand-cart! Postponing instant life, he makes haste to Boston in the cars, and there deals in stocks, not quite relishing his employment, — and so earns the money with which he buys his fuel. And when, by chance, I meet him about this indirect and complicated business, I am not struck with the beauty of his employment. It does not harmonize with the sunset. How much more the former consults his genius, some genius at any rate!
Now I should love to get my fuel so, — I have got some so, — but though I may be glad to have it, I do not love to get it in any other way less simple and direct.
For if I buy one necessary of life, I cheat myself to some extent, I deprive myself of the pleasure, the inexpressible joy, which is the unfailing reward of satisfying any want of our nature simply and truly.
No trade is simple, but artificial and complex. It postpones life and substitutes death. It goes against the grain. If the first generation does not die of it, the third or fourth does. In face of all statistics, I will never believe that it is the descendants of tradesmen who keep the state alive, but of simple yeomen or laborers.
This, indeed, statistics say of the city reinforced by the country. The oldest, wisest politician grows not more human so, but is merely a gray wharf rat at last. He makes a habit of disregarding the moral right and wrong for the legal or political, commits a slow suicide, and thinks to recover by retiring on to a farm at last. This simplicity it is, and the vigor it imparts, that enables the simple vagabond, though he does get drunk and is sent to the house of correction so often, to hold up his head among men.
"If I go to Boston every day and sell tape from morning till night," says the merchant (which we will admit is not a beautiful action), "some time or other I shall be able to buy the best of fuel without stint." Yes, but not the pleasure of picking it up by the riverside, which, I may say, is of more value than the warmth it yields, for it but keeps the vital heat in us that we may repeat such pleasing exercises.
It warms us twice, and the first warmth is the most wholesome and memorable, compared with which the other is mere coke. It is to give no account of my employment to say that I cut wood to keep me from freezing, or cultivate beans to keep me from starving. Oh, no, the greatest value of these labors is received before the wood is teamed home, or the beans are harvested (or winnowed from it).
Goodwin stands on the solid earth.
The earth looks solider under him, and for such as he no political economies, with their profit and loss, supply and demand, need ever be written, for they will need to use no policy. As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth. There is no secret in his trade, more than in the sun's. It is no mystery how he gets his living; no, not even when he steals it. But there is less double-dealing in his living than in your trade.
Goodwin is a most constant fisherman. He must well know the taste of pickerel by this time. He will fish, I would not venture to say how many days in succession. When I can remember to have seen him fishing almost daily for some time, if it rains, I am surprised on looking out to see him slowly wending his way to the river in his oilcloth coat, with his basket and pole.
I saw him the other day fishing in the middle of the stream, the day after I had seen him fishing on the shore, while by a kind of magic I sailed by him; and he said he was catching minnow for bait in the winter. When I was twenty rods off, he held up a pickerel that weighed two and a half pounds, which he had forgot to show me before, and the next morning, as he afterward told me, he caught one that weighed three pounds.
If it is ever necessary to appoint a committee on fish-ponds and pickerel, let him be one of them. Surely he is tenacious of life, hard to scale.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 22, 1853
One-eyed John Goodwin, the fisherman, was loading into a hand-cart . . ., — though he is regarded by most as a vicious character, — whose whole motive was so easy to fathom, — thus to obtain his winter's wood, — charmed me unspeakably. . . .Goodwin stands on the solid earth . . . Goodwin is a most constant fisherman. See November 4, 1858 ("I took out my glass, and beheld Goodwin, the one-eyed Ajax, in his short blue frock, short and square-bodied, as broad as for his height he can afford to be, getting his winter's wood; for this is one of the phenomena of the season. "); November 28, 1858 ("Goodwin cannot be a very bad man, he is so cheery. "); November 28, 1859 ("Goodwin is cutting out a few cords of dead wood in the midst of E. Hubbard's old lot."); March 18, 1857 ("While Emerson sits writing [in] his study this still, overcast, moist day, Goodwin is paddling up the still, dark river. Emerson burns twenty-five cords of wood and fourteen tons of coal; Goodwin perhaps a cord and a half, much of which he picks out of the river.")
They teach us how to die. How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! A myriad wrappers for germinating seeds. By what subtle chemistry they will mount up again, climbing by the sap in the trees. See October 20. 1853 ("Merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting their graves, whispering all through the woods about it. They that waved so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind")
Now I should love to get my fuel so, — I have got some so. See October 20, 1855 ("I like best the bread which I have baked, the garment which I have made, the shelter which I have constructed, the fuel which I have gathered."); October 21, 1857 ("I become a connoisseur in wood at last, take only the best.")
For if I buy one necessary of life, I cheat myself to some extent, I deprive myself of the pleasure, the inexpressible joy, which is the unfailing reward of satisfying any want of our nature simply and truly. See October 21, 1857 ("It is pitiful to see a man of sixty, a philosopher, per chance, inquiring for a bearing apple orchard for sale. If he must have one, why did he not set it out when he was thirty?")
A week or more of fairest Indian summer ended last night, for to-day it rains. It was so warm day before yesterday, I worked in my shirt-sleeves in the woods.
I cannot easily dismiss the subject of the fallen leaves.
How densely they cover and conceal the water for several feet in width, under and amid the alders and button-bushes and maples along the shore of the river, — still light, tight, and dry boats, dense cities of boats, their fibres not relaxed by the waters, undulating and rustling with every wave, of such various pure and delicate, though fading, tints, — of hues that might make the fame of teas, — dried on great Nature's coppers.
And then see this great fleet of scattered leaf boats, still tight and dry, each one curled up on every side by the sun's skill, like boats of hide, scarcely moving in the sluggish current, — like the great fleets with which you mingle on entering some great mart, some New York which we are all approaching together.
Or else they are slowly moving round in some great eddy which the river makes, where the water is deep and the current is wearing into the bank. How gently each has been deposited on the water! No violence has been used toward them yet. But next the shore, as thick as foam they float, and when you turn your prow that way, list! what a rustling of the crisped waves!
Wet grounds about the edges of swamps look dry with them, and many a wet foot you get in consequence.
Consider what a vast crop is thus annually shed upon the earth. This, more than any mere grain or seed, is the great harvest of the year. This annual decay and death, this dying by inches, before the whole tree at last lies down and turns to soil. As trees shed their leaves, so deer their horns, and men their hair or nails. The year's great crop.
I am more interested in it than in the English grass alone or in the corn. It prepares the virgin mould for future corn fields on which the earth fattens. They teach us how to die. How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! A myriad wrappers for germinating seeds. By what subtle chemistry they will mount up again, climbing by the sap in the trees.
The ground is all parti-colored with them. For beautiful variety can any crop be compared with them? The dogwood (poison sumach) blazing its sins as scarlet, the early-blushing maple, the rich chrome (?) yellow of the poplar, the mulberry ash, the brilliant red huckleberry with which the hills' backs are painted like sheep's, — not merely the plain flavidness of corn, but all the colors of the rainbow.
The salmon-colored oaks, etc., etc. The frost touches them, and, with the slightest breath of day or jarring of earth's axle, see in what showers they come floating down, at the first earnest touch of autumn's wand.
They stoop to rise, to mount higher in coming years by subtiler chemistry, and the sapling's first fruits, thus shed, transmuted at last, may adorn its crown, when, in after years, it has become the monarch of the forest.
Yesterday, toward night, gave Sophia and mother a sail as far as the Battle-Ground. One-eyed John Goodwin, the fisherman, was loading into a hand-cart and conveying home the piles of driftwood which of late he had collected with his boat. It was a beautiful evening, and a clear amber sunset lit up all the eastern shores; and that man's employment, so simple and direct, — though he is regarded by most as a vicious character, — whose whole motive was so easy to fathom, — thus to obtain his winter's wood, — charmed me unspeakably.
So much do we love actions that are simple. They are all poetic. We, too, would fain be so employed.
So unlike the pursuits of most men, so artificial or complicated. Consider how the broker collects his winter's wood, what sport he makes of it, what is his boat and hand-cart! Postponing instant life, he makes haste to Boston in the cars, and there deals in stocks, not quite relishing his employment, — and so earns the money with which he buys his fuel. And when, by chance, I meet him about this indirect and complicated business, I am not struck with the beauty of his employment. It does not harmonize with the sunset. How much more the former consults his genius, some genius at any rate!
Now I should love to get my fuel so, — I have got some so, — but though I may be glad to have it, I do not love to get it in any other way less simple and direct.
For if I buy one necessary of life, I cheat myself to some extent, I deprive myself of the pleasure, the inexpressible joy, which is the unfailing reward of satisfying any want of our nature simply and truly.
No trade is simple, but artificial and complex. It postpones life and substitutes death. It goes against the grain. If the first generation does not die of it, the third or fourth does. In face of all statistics, I will never believe that it is the descendants of tradesmen who keep the state alive, but of simple yeomen or laborers.
This, indeed, statistics say of the city reinforced by the country. The oldest, wisest politician grows not more human so, but is merely a gray wharf rat at last. He makes a habit of disregarding the moral right and wrong for the legal or political, commits a slow suicide, and thinks to recover by retiring on to a farm at last. This simplicity it is, and the vigor it imparts, that enables the simple vagabond, though he does get drunk and is sent to the house of correction so often, to hold up his head among men.
"If I go to Boston every day and sell tape from morning till night," says the merchant (which we will admit is not a beautiful action), "some time or other I shall be able to buy the best of fuel without stint." Yes, but not the pleasure of picking it up by the riverside, which, I may say, is of more value than the warmth it yields, for it but keeps the vital heat in us that we may repeat such pleasing exercises.
It warms us twice, and the first warmth is the most wholesome and memorable, compared with which the other is mere coke. It is to give no account of my employment to say that I cut wood to keep me from freezing, or cultivate beans to keep me from starving. Oh, no, the greatest value of these labors is received before the wood is teamed home, or the beans are harvested (or winnowed from it).
Goodwin stands on the solid earth.
The earth looks solider under him, and for such as he no political economies, with their profit and loss, supply and demand, need ever be written, for they will need to use no policy. As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth. There is no secret in his trade, more than in the sun's. It is no mystery how he gets his living; no, not even when he steals it. But there is less double-dealing in his living than in your trade.
Goodwin is a most constant fisherman. He must well know the taste of pickerel by this time. He will fish, I would not venture to say how many days in succession. When I can remember to have seen him fishing almost daily for some time, if it rains, I am surprised on looking out to see him slowly wending his way to the river in his oilcloth coat, with his basket and pole.
I saw him the other day fishing in the middle of the stream, the day after I had seen him fishing on the shore, while by a kind of magic I sailed by him; and he said he was catching minnow for bait in the winter. When I was twenty rods off, he held up a pickerel that weighed two and a half pounds, which he had forgot to show me before, and the next morning, as he afterward told me, he caught one that weighed three pounds.
If it is ever necessary to appoint a committee on fish-ponds and pickerel, let him be one of them. Surely he is tenacious of life, hard to scale.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 22, 1853
They teach us how to die. How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! A myriad wrappers for germinating seeds. By what subtle chemistry they will mount up again, climbing by the sap in the trees. See October 20. 1853 ("Merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting their graves, whispering all through the woods about it. They that waved so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind")
Now I should love to get my fuel so, — I have got some so. See October 20, 1855 ("I like best the bread which I have baked, the garment which I have made, the shelter which I have constructed, the fuel which I have gathered."); October 21, 1857 ("I become a connoisseur in wood at last, take only the best.")
For if I buy one necessary of life, I cheat myself to some extent, I deprive myself of the pleasure, the inexpressible joy, which is the unfailing reward of satisfying any want of our nature simply and truly. See October 21, 1857 ("It is pitiful to see a man of sixty, a philosopher, per chance, inquiring for a bearing apple orchard for sale. If he must have one, why did he not set it out when he was thirty?")
It warms us twice, and the first warmth is the most wholesome and. . . the greatest value of these labors is received before the wood is teamed home. See September 24, 1855 (" I derive a separate and peculiar pleasure from every stick that I find. Each has its history, of which I am reminded when I come to burn it, and under what circumstances I found it. "); October 20, 1855 ("Thus one half the value of my wood is enjoyed before it is housed, and the other half is equal to the whole value of an equal quantity of the wood which I buy.")
Monday, November 12, 2018
The fall of the leaf is preceded by a ripe old age.
November 12, 2018
I hear from Ricketson to-day that on the 10th the following trees, which I had not seen lately, were leafy and, as I infer, more or less unwithered. His words are, “Horse-chestnut quite full of yellow and green foliage. English walnut ditto. Beech, linden (l), hawthorn (nearly perfect in green foliage, only a little decayed at the top, but in a sheltered place), silver linden, copper beech (2), elm (3), weeping ash, Euonymus Europaeus (4). Also “the guelder-rose”‘ and “Bignonia radicans and acuminata” and “numerous shrubs in full leaf.” Of those not European, “Osage orange (Maclura), Cornus florida (handsome), tulip, three-thomed acacia, Mexican cypress.”
He sent me specimens of those numbered above which were fresh, especially the fourth, and the third next, the second least so; but then what he sends for the American linden is greener than the European!! I find that E. Hoar observed the English elms with leaves or leafy still November 2d, near Salisbury.
It is much the coldest day yet, and the ground is a little frozen and resounds under my tread. All people move the brisker for the cold, yet are braced and a little elated by it. They love to say, “Cold day, sir.” Though the days are shorter, you get more work out of a hired man than before, for he must work to keep warm.
P. M. — To Hill.
The riverside is skimmed over and presents a wintry aspect, — those great plaits, or folds, as it were, where the crystals have shot, wool-grass frozen in, and the thin white ice where the water has gone down.
Now for a brisk and energetic walk, with a will and a purpose. Have done with sauntering, in the idle sense. You must rush to the assault of winter. Make haste into the outskirts, climb the ramparts of the town, be on the alert and let nothing escape your observation. The army is all van.
The cold alone has brought down a good part of the remaining leaves of abeles and white willows. I see the handsome leaves of the last thickly strewn over the ice and reminding of grain even, half upside down. Pitch pine leaves are about all fallen.
The very common redness of the recent shoots, as white maples, huckleberries, etc., now that the twigs are bare, and on many sides masses of them are run together in a maze, adds to the general russet of nature. The black willow shoots are a very pale brownish yellow.
We are now reduced to browsing on buds and twigs, and methinks, with this diet and this cold, we shall look to the stall-fed thinkers like those unkempt cattle in meadows now, grazing the withered grass.
Examining closely the base of some frost-weed, I find in each case a little frost firmly attached to the naked woody stem just under the bark, having burst the last for about an inch along the stem and elevated it. Perhaps this weed dies down slowly, since it blossoms a second time, and there is more sap now in the stem near its base than usual, which escapes in a vapor from the stem, and, being frozen, forms this kind of icicle.
I think that the change to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a late and more perfect and final maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits, and not to that of green leaves, etc., etc., which merely serve a purpose. The word “ripe” is thought by some to be derived from the verb “to reap,” according to which that is ripe which is ready to be reaped. The fall of the leaf is preceded by a ripe old age.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 12, 1858
I think that the change to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a late and more perfect and final maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits. See Autumnal Tints ("Most appear to confound changed leaves with withered ones, as if they were to confound ripe apples with rotten ones. I think that the change to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a late and perfect maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits.")
He sent me specimens of those numbered above which were fresh, especially the fourth, and the third next, the second least so; but then what he sends for the American linden is greener than the European!! I find that E. Hoar observed the English elms with leaves or leafy still November 2d, near Salisbury.
It is much the coldest day yet, and the ground is a little frozen and resounds under my tread. All people move the brisker for the cold, yet are braced and a little elated by it. They love to say, “Cold day, sir.” Though the days are shorter, you get more work out of a hired man than before, for he must work to keep warm.
P. M. — To Hill.
The riverside is skimmed over and presents a wintry aspect, — those great plaits, or folds, as it were, where the crystals have shot, wool-grass frozen in, and the thin white ice where the water has gone down.
Now for a brisk and energetic walk, with a will and a purpose. Have done with sauntering, in the idle sense. You must rush to the assault of winter. Make haste into the outskirts, climb the ramparts of the town, be on the alert and let nothing escape your observation. The army is all van.
The cold alone has brought down a good part of the remaining leaves of abeles and white willows. I see the handsome leaves of the last thickly strewn over the ice and reminding of grain even, half upside down. Pitch pine leaves are about all fallen.
The very common redness of the recent shoots, as white maples, huckleberries, etc., now that the twigs are bare, and on many sides masses of them are run together in a maze, adds to the general russet of nature. The black willow shoots are a very pale brownish yellow.
We are now reduced to browsing on buds and twigs, and methinks, with this diet and this cold, we shall look to the stall-fed thinkers like those unkempt cattle in meadows now, grazing the withered grass.
Examining closely the base of some frost-weed, I find in each case a little frost firmly attached to the naked woody stem just under the bark, having burst the last for about an inch along the stem and elevated it. Perhaps this weed dies down slowly, since it blossoms a second time, and there is more sap now in the stem near its base than usual, which escapes in a vapor from the stem, and, being frozen, forms this kind of icicle.
I think that the change to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a late and more perfect and final maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits, and not to that of green leaves, etc., etc., which merely serve a purpose. The word “ripe” is thought by some to be derived from the verb “to reap,” according to which that is ripe which is ready to be reaped. The fall of the leaf is preceded by a ripe old age.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 12, 1858
I think that the change to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a late and more perfect and final maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits. See Autumnal Tints ("Most appear to confound changed leaves with withered ones, as if they were to confound ripe apples with rotten ones. I think that the change to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a late and perfect maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits.")
Now for a brisk and energetic walk, with a will and a purpose. Have done with sauntering, in the idle sense. You must rush to the assault of winter. See January 10, 1851 ("And this word "saunter," by the way, is happily derived "from idle people who roved about the country [in the Middle Ages] and asked charity under pretence of going a la Sainte Terre . . . They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds."); December 25, 1856 ("Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary."); January 12, 1852 ("I sometimes think that I may go forth and walk hard . . . be much abroad in heat and cold, day and night; live more, expend more atmospheres, be weary often, etc., etc.” ); February 28, 1852 (“To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin . . . and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten, - so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men.”); April 19 1852 ("To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth. Then returns Nature to her wild estate.’);
Monday, November 5, 2018
I hear one cricket this louring day.
November 5.
Humphrey Buttrick says that he finds old and young of both kinds of small rails, and that they breed here, though he never saw their nests.
P. M. — Up Assabet.
The river has risen somewhat, on account of rain yesterday and the 30th. So it was lowest the 30th. That great fleet of leaves of the 21st October is now sunk to the bottom, near the shore, and are flatted out there, paving it thickly, and but few recently fallen are to be seen on the water; and in the woods the leaves do not lie up so crisp since the rain.
Saw Stewart shoot a Carolina rail, which was standing on the side of a musquash-cabin off Prichard’s, within two rods of him. This has no black throat and is probably the female.
The large shallow cups of the red oak acorns look like some buttons I have seen which had lost their core.
The Cornus florida on the Island is still full-leafed, and is now completely scarlet, though it was partly green on the 28th. It is apparently in the height of its color there now, or, if more exposed, perhaps it would have been on the 1st of November. This makes it the latest tree to change. The leaves are drooping, like the C. sericea, while those of some sprouts at its base are horizontal. Some incline to crimson.
A few white maples are not yet bare, but thinly clothed with dull-yellow leaves which still have life in them. Judging from the two aspens, this tree, and the willows, one would say that the earliest trees to leaf were, perhaps, the last to lose their leaves.
Little dippers were seen yesterday.
The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch.
Water milkweed has been discounting some days, with its small upright pods.
I hear one cricket this louring day. Since but one is heard, it is the more distinct and therefore seems louder and more musical. It is a clearer note, less creaking than before.
A few Populus grandidentata leaves are still left on.
The common smooth rose leaves are pretty conspicuously yellow yet along the river, and some dull-reddish high blackberry is seen by the roads. Also meadow sweet is observed yet with the rose.
It is quite still; no wind, no insect hum, and no note of birds, but one hairy woodpecker.
That lake grass, Glyceria fluitans, is, me thinks, more noticeable now than in summer on the surface of the fuller stream, green and purple.
Meadow-sweet is a prominent yellow yet.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1858
Humphrey Buttrick says that he finds old and young of both kinds of small rails, and that they breed here, though he never saw their nests See September 7, 1858 ("Storrow Higginson brings from Deerfield this evening some eggs to show me, — among others apparently that of the Virginian rail. It agrees in color, size, etc., according to Wilson, and is like (except, perhaps, in form) to one which E. Bartlett brought me a week or ten days ago, which dropped from a load of hay carried to Stow’s barn! So perhaps it breeds here. Also a smaller egg of same form, but dull white with very pale dusky spots, which may be that of the Carolina rail."); September 9, 1858 ("Rice says he saw two meadow-hens when getting his hay in Sudbury some two months ago, and that they breed there. They kept up a peculiar note. My egg (named Sept. 7th) was undoubtedly a meadow-hen’s Rallus Virginiana."); September 18, 1858 ("Peabody says that they are seen here only in the autumn on their return from the north, though Brewer thinks their nest may be found here."); October 3, 1858 ("One brings me this morning a Carolina rail alive, this year’s bird evidently from its marks. . . . I suspect it may have been hatched here.");October 22, 1858 ("C. tells of hearing after dark the other night frequent raucous notes which were new to him, on the ammannia meadow, in the grass. Were they not meadow-hens? Rice says he saw one within a week."); June 1, 1859 ("Some boys found yesterday, in tussock of sedge amid some flags in a wet place in Cyrus Hosmer's meadow, west of the willow-row, six inches above the water, the nest evidently of a rail, with seven eggs."); July 16, 1860 ("Standing amid the pipes of the Great Meadow, I hear a very sharp creaking peep, no doubt from a rail quite near me, calling to or directing her young, who are meanwhile uttering a very faint, somewhat similar peep")
The Cornus florida on the Island is still full-leafed, and is now completely scarlet, though it was partly green on the 28th. See October 28, 1858 (“The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case. Apparently none have fallen.”)
A few white maples are not yet bare, but thinly clothed with dull-yellow leaves which still have life in them. See October 28, 1858 (“The majority of the white maples are bare, but others are still thickly leaved the leaves being a greenish yellow. It appears, then, that they hold their leaves longer than our other maples, or most trees.”) and note to October 14, 1858 ("The white maples are now apparently in their autumnal dress”)
The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch. See November 5, 1855 (“The distant willow-tops are yellowish . . . in the right light. . . ..[B]irches, clear yellow at top”)
I hear one cricket this louring day. Since but one is heard, it is the more distinct and therefore seems louder and more musical. It is a clearer note. See November 1, 1858 ("I hear in the fields just before sundown a shriller chirping of a few crickets, reminding me that their song is getting thin and will soon be quenched"); November 3, 1858 ("Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. They then sounded peculiarly distinct, being but few here and there on a dry and warm hill, bird-like. Yet these seemed to be singing a little louder and in a little loftier strain, now that the chirp of the cricket generally was quenched.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November
That lake grass, Glyceria fluitans. See September 3, 1858 (“That floating grass by the riverside whose lower leaves, so flat and linear, float on the surface of the water.”)
November 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November 5
 |
| November 5, 2018 |
P. M. — Up Assabet.
The river has risen somewhat, on account of rain yesterday and the 30th. So it was lowest the 30th. That great fleet of leaves of the 21st October is now sunk to the bottom, near the shore, and are flatted out there, paving it thickly, and but few recently fallen are to be seen on the water; and in the woods the leaves do not lie up so crisp since the rain.
Saw Stewart shoot a Carolina rail, which was standing on the side of a musquash-cabin off Prichard’s, within two rods of him. This has no black throat and is probably the female.
The large shallow cups of the red oak acorns look like some buttons I have seen which had lost their core.
The Cornus florida on the Island is still full-leafed, and is now completely scarlet, though it was partly green on the 28th. It is apparently in the height of its color there now, or, if more exposed, perhaps it would have been on the 1st of November. This makes it the latest tree to change. The leaves are drooping, like the C. sericea, while those of some sprouts at its base are horizontal. Some incline to crimson.
A few white maples are not yet bare, but thinly clothed with dull-yellow leaves which still have life in them. Judging from the two aspens, this tree, and the willows, one would say that the earliest trees to leaf were, perhaps, the last to lose their leaves.
Little dippers were seen yesterday.
The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch.
Water milkweed has been discounting some days, with its small upright pods.
I hear one cricket this louring day. Since but one is heard, it is the more distinct and therefore seems louder and more musical. It is a clearer note, less creaking than before.
A few Populus grandidentata leaves are still left on.
The common smooth rose leaves are pretty conspicuously yellow yet along the river, and some dull-reddish high blackberry is seen by the roads. Also meadow sweet is observed yet with the rose.
It is quite still; no wind, no insect hum, and no note of birds, but one hairy woodpecker.
That lake grass, Glyceria fluitans, is, me thinks, more noticeable now than in summer on the surface of the fuller stream, green and purple.
Meadow-sweet is a prominent yellow yet.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1858
Humphrey Buttrick says that he finds old and young of both kinds of small rails, and that they breed here, though he never saw their nests See September 7, 1858 ("Storrow Higginson brings from Deerfield this evening some eggs to show me, — among others apparently that of the Virginian rail. It agrees in color, size, etc., according to Wilson, and is like (except, perhaps, in form) to one which E. Bartlett brought me a week or ten days ago, which dropped from a load of hay carried to Stow’s barn! So perhaps it breeds here. Also a smaller egg of same form, but dull white with very pale dusky spots, which may be that of the Carolina rail."); September 9, 1858 ("Rice says he saw two meadow-hens when getting his hay in Sudbury some two months ago, and that they breed there. They kept up a peculiar note. My egg (named Sept. 7th) was undoubtedly a meadow-hen’s Rallus Virginiana."); September 18, 1858 ("Peabody says that they are seen here only in the autumn on their return from the north, though Brewer thinks their nest may be found here."); October 3, 1858 ("One brings me this morning a Carolina rail alive, this year’s bird evidently from its marks. . . . I suspect it may have been hatched here.");October 22, 1858 ("C. tells of hearing after dark the other night frequent raucous notes which were new to him, on the ammannia meadow, in the grass. Were they not meadow-hens? Rice says he saw one within a week."); June 1, 1859 ("Some boys found yesterday, in tussock of sedge amid some flags in a wet place in Cyrus Hosmer's meadow, west of the willow-row, six inches above the water, the nest evidently of a rail, with seven eggs."); July 16, 1860 ("Standing amid the pipes of the Great Meadow, I hear a very sharp creaking peep, no doubt from a rail quite near me, calling to or directing her young, who are meanwhile uttering a very faint, somewhat similar peep")
The Cornus florida on the Island is still full-leafed, and is now completely scarlet, though it was partly green on the 28th. See October 28, 1858 (“The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case. Apparently none have fallen.”)
A few white maples are not yet bare, but thinly clothed with dull-yellow leaves which still have life in them. See October 28, 1858 (“The majority of the white maples are bare, but others are still thickly leaved the leaves being a greenish yellow. It appears, then, that they hold their leaves longer than our other maples, or most trees.”) and note to October 14, 1858 ("The white maples are now apparently in their autumnal dress”)
The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch. See November 5, 1855 (“The distant willow-tops are yellowish . . . in the right light. . . ..[B]irches, clear yellow at top”)
That lake grass, Glyceria fluitans. See September 3, 1858 (“That floating grass by the riverside whose lower leaves, so flat and linear, float on the surface of the water.”)
November 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November 5
I hear one cricket
more distinct this louring day –
and more musical.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I hear one cricket this louring day.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024
https://tinyurl.com/hdt05nov1858
Saturday, November 3, 2018
At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open.
November 3
Colder weather, true November weather, comes again to-night, and I must rekindle my fire, which I had done without of late. I must walk briskly in order to keep warm in my thin coat.
P. M. — To Annursnack.
I am inclined to think that pignuts fall earlier than mocker-nuts, i. e. the leaves, and that the first are now about fallen (?). Those on Nawshawtuct are bare, but I see a great many hickories of some kind not nearly bare.
Monroe’s arbor-vitae hedge has fallen. Put it with the white pine.
The jay is the bird of October. I have seen it repeatedly flitting amid the bright leaves, of a different color from them all and equally bright, and taking its flight from grove to grove. It, too, with its bright color, stands for some ripeness in the bird harvest. And its scream! it is as if it blowed on the edge of an October leaf. It is never more in its element and at home than when flitting amid these brilliant colors. No doubt it delights in bright color, and so has begged for itself a brilliant coat. It is not gathering seeds from the sod, too busy to look around, while fleeing the country. It is wide awake to what is going on, on the qui vive. It flies to some bright tree and bruits its splendors abroad.
By fall I mean literally the falling of the leaves, though some mean by it the changing or the acquisition of a brighter color. This I call the autumnal tint, the ripening to the fall.
The only white birch leaves now seen are those lingering green terminal leaves of the 23d, now at last turned yellow, for they are now burnt upward to the last spark and glimmering. Methinks the birch ripens its leaves very perfectly though gradually.
I should say that that tree which ripened its leaves well, like this, was better suited to the climate than one like the locust and most apples, —which was mostly killed by frost first annually. Perhaps this tells at last on the constitution of the tree, and that variety would be safest to cultivate which matured its leaves best.
The pitch pine fallen and falling leaves now and for some time have not been bright or yellow, but brown.
At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open, but even the stems are generally killed.
I notice that the cows lately admitted to the meadows and orchards have browsed the grass, etc., closely, on that strip between the dry hillside and the wet meadow, where it is undoubtedly sweetest and freshest yet, and where it chances that this late flower the gentian grows. There, too, grows the herbage which is now the most grateful to the cattle.
Also Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom; yarrow, etc., etc. Much Lycopodium complanatum not open yet.
Returning, I see at the very northwest end of the White Cedar Swamp a little elder, still quite leafy and green, near the path on the edge of the swamp. Its leafets are commonly nine, and the lower two or more are commonly divided. This seemed peculiarly downy beneath, even “sub-pubescent,” as Bigelow describes the Sambucus pubens to be. Compare it with the common.
Also by it is Viburnum nudum, still quite fresh and green, the slender shoots from starting plants very erect and straight.
The lower leaves of the water andromeda are now red, and the lambkill leaves are drooping (is it more than before?) and purplish from the effect of frost in low swamps like this.
Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. They then sounded peculiarly distinct, being but few here and there on a dry and warm hill, bird-like. Yet these seemed to be singing a little louder and in a little loftier strain, now that the chirp of the cricket generally was quenched.
How long we will follow an illusion! On meeting that one whom I call my friend, I find that I had imagined something that was not there. I am sure to depart sadder than I came. Nothing makes me so dejected as to have met my friends, for they make me doubt if it is possible to have any friends. I feel what a fool I am. I cannot conceive of persons more strange to me than they actually are; not thinking, not believing, not doing as I do; interrupted by me. My only distinction must be that I am the greatest bore they ever had. Not me single thought agreed; regularly balking one another. But when I get far away, my thoughts return to them. That is the way I can visit them. Perhaps it is unaccountable to me why I care for them. Thus I am taught that my friend is not an actual person. When I have withdrawn and am alone, I forget the actual person and remember only my ideal. Then I have a friend again.
I am not so ready to perceive the illusion that is in Nature. I certainly come nearer, to say the least, to an actual and joyful intercourse with her. Every day I have more or less communion with her, as I think. At least, I do not feel as if I must withdraw out of nature. I feel like a welcome guest. Yet, strictly speaking, the same must be true of nature and of man; our ideal is the only real. It is not the finite and temporal that satisfies or concerns us in either case.
I associate the idea of friendship, methinks, with the person the most foreign to me. This illusion is perpetuated, like superstition in a country long after civilization has been attained to. We are attracted toward a particular person, but no one has discovered the laws of this attraction. When I come nearest to that other actually, I am wont to be surprised at my selection. It may be enough that we have met some time, and now can never forget it. Some time or other we paid each other this wonderful compliment, looked largely, humanly, divinely on one another, and now are fated to be acquaintances forever.
In the case of nature I am not so conscious of this unsatisfied yearning.
Some oak woods begin to look bare, and even smoky, after their fashion.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 3, 1858
By fall I mean literally the falling of the leaves. See November 11, 1851 (The fall of the year is over.")
Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. See November 8, 1853 ("Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday. They chirp here and there at longer and longer intervals, till the snow quenches their song."); Seee also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November
November 3, 2014
Colder weather, true November weather, comes again to-night, and I must rekindle my fire, which I had done without of late. I must walk briskly in order to keep warm in my thin coat.
P. M. — To Annursnack.
I am inclined to think that pignuts fall earlier than mocker-nuts, i. e. the leaves, and that the first are now about fallen (?). Those on Nawshawtuct are bare, but I see a great many hickories of some kind not nearly bare.
Monroe’s arbor-vitae hedge has fallen. Put it with the white pine.
The jay is the bird of October. I have seen it repeatedly flitting amid the bright leaves, of a different color from them all and equally bright, and taking its flight from grove to grove. It, too, with its bright color, stands for some ripeness in the bird harvest. And its scream! it is as if it blowed on the edge of an October leaf. It is never more in its element and at home than when flitting amid these brilliant colors. No doubt it delights in bright color, and so has begged for itself a brilliant coat. It is not gathering seeds from the sod, too busy to look around, while fleeing the country. It is wide awake to what is going on, on the qui vive. It flies to some bright tree and bruits its splendors abroad.
By fall I mean literally the falling of the leaves, though some mean by it the changing or the acquisition of a brighter color. This I call the autumnal tint, the ripening to the fall.
The only white birch leaves now seen are those lingering green terminal leaves of the 23d, now at last turned yellow, for they are now burnt upward to the last spark and glimmering. Methinks the birch ripens its leaves very perfectly though gradually.
I should say that that tree which ripened its leaves well, like this, was better suited to the climate than one like the locust and most apples, —which was mostly killed by frost first annually. Perhaps this tells at last on the constitution of the tree, and that variety would be safest to cultivate which matured its leaves best.
The pitch pine fallen and falling leaves now and for some time have not been bright or yellow, but brown.
At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open, but even the stems are generally killed.
I notice that the cows lately admitted to the meadows and orchards have browsed the grass, etc., closely, on that strip between the dry hillside and the wet meadow, where it is undoubtedly sweetest and freshest yet, and where it chances that this late flower the gentian grows. There, too, grows the herbage which is now the most grateful to the cattle.
Also Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom; yarrow, etc., etc. Much Lycopodium complanatum not open yet.
Returning, I see at the very northwest end of the White Cedar Swamp a little elder, still quite leafy and green, near the path on the edge of the swamp. Its leafets are commonly nine, and the lower two or more are commonly divided. This seemed peculiarly downy beneath, even “sub-pubescent,” as Bigelow describes the Sambucus pubens to be. Compare it with the common.
Also by it is Viburnum nudum, still quite fresh and green, the slender shoots from starting plants very erect and straight.
The lower leaves of the water andromeda are now red, and the lambkill leaves are drooping (is it more than before?) and purplish from the effect of frost in low swamps like this.
Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. They then sounded peculiarly distinct, being but few here and there on a dry and warm hill, bird-like. Yet these seemed to be singing a little louder and in a little loftier strain, now that the chirp of the cricket generally was quenched.
November 3, 2024
How long we will follow an illusion! On meeting that one whom I call my friend, I find that I had imagined something that was not there. I am sure to depart sadder than I came. Nothing makes me so dejected as to have met my friends, for they make me doubt if it is possible to have any friends. I feel what a fool I am. I cannot conceive of persons more strange to me than they actually are; not thinking, not believing, not doing as I do; interrupted by me. My only distinction must be that I am the greatest bore they ever had. Not me single thought agreed; regularly balking one another. But when I get far away, my thoughts return to them. That is the way I can visit them. Perhaps it is unaccountable to me why I care for them. Thus I am taught that my friend is not an actual person. When I have withdrawn and am alone, I forget the actual person and remember only my ideal. Then I have a friend again.
I am not so ready to perceive the illusion that is in Nature. I certainly come nearer, to say the least, to an actual and joyful intercourse with her. Every day I have more or less communion with her, as I think. At least, I do not feel as if I must withdraw out of nature. I feel like a welcome guest. Yet, strictly speaking, the same must be true of nature and of man; our ideal is the only real. It is not the finite and temporal that satisfies or concerns us in either case.
I associate the idea of friendship, methinks, with the person the most foreign to me. This illusion is perpetuated, like superstition in a country long after civilization has been attained to. We are attracted toward a particular person, but no one has discovered the laws of this attraction. When I come nearest to that other actually, I am wont to be surprised at my selection. It may be enough that we have met some time, and now can never forget it. Some time or other we paid each other this wonderful compliment, looked largely, humanly, divinely on one another, and now are fated to be acquaintances forever.
In the case of nature I am not so conscious of this unsatisfied yearning.
Some oak woods begin to look bare, and even smoky, after their fashion.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 3, 1858
By fall I mean literally the falling of the leaves. See November 11, 1851 (The fall of the year is over.")
Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. See November 8, 1853 ("Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday. They chirp here and there at longer and longer intervals, till the snow quenches their song."); Seee also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November
At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open, but even the stems are generally killed. See October 10, 1858 ("To Annursnack . . . I find the fringed gentian abundantly open at 3 and at 4 P. M., — in fact, it must be all the afternoon, — open to catch the cool October sun and air in its low position. Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence."); October 12, 1857 ("To Annursnack . . . The fringed gentian by the brook opposite is in its prime."); November 4, 1853 (“To Hubbard's Close. I find no traces of the fringed gentian here, so that in low meadows I suspect it does not last very late”); November 30, 1856 (“Minot Pratt tells me that he watched the fringed gentian this year, and it lasted till the first week in November..”) See allso A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian
Alone, I forget
the real person – remember
only my ideal.
Friday, October 26, 2018
The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later.
October 26.
The sugar maples are about bare, except a few small ones.
Minott remembers how he used to chop beech wood. He says that when frozen it is hard and brittle just like glass, and you must look out for the chips, for, if they strike you in the face, they will cut like a knife.
He says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot. ”
The largest scarlet oak that I remember hereabouts stands by the penthorum pool in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and is now in its prime. I found the sap was flowing fast in it. White birches, elms, chestnuts, Salix alba (small willows), and white maple are a long time falling. The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later.
I wear a thicker coat, my single thick fall coat, at last, and begin to feel my fingers cool early and late. One shopkeeper has hung out woollen gloves and even thick buckskin mittens by his door, foreseeing what his customers will want as soon as it is finger-cold, and determined to get the start of his fellows.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1858
The sugar maples are about bare, except a few small ones. See October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape"); October 25, 1853 ("The white maples are completely bare. ");October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.") October 25, 1858 ("I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. . . .At the pond the black birches are bare"); October 26, 1854 ("Apple trees are generally bare, as well as bass, ash, elm, maple.")
I used to call them “pump-er-gor’.See April 24, 1854 (" I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself."); and note to April, 25 1858 ("Goodwin says he heard a stake-driver several days ago.")
The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later."); October 21, 1855 ("Up Assabet. . . . [T]he scarlet oak is very bright and conspicuous. How finely its leaves are out against the sky with sharp points, especially near the top of the tree! "); October 24, 1858 ("The scarlet oak. . . is now completely scarlet and apparently has been so a few days. This alone of our indigenous deciduous trees . . .is now in its glory. "); October 30, 1855 ("Going to the new cemetery, I see that the scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness; perhaps the latest of the oaks."); November 1, 1858 ("If you wish to count the scarlet oaks. do it now. Stand on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high and the sky is clear, and every one within range of your vision will be revealed. ")
The largest scarlet oak that I remember hereabouts stands in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and is now in its prime. See December 11, 1858 ("The large scarlet oak in the cemetery has leaves on the lower limbs near the trunk just like the large white oaks now."); January 19, 1859 {"Our largest scarlet oak (by the Hollow), some three feet diameter at three feet from ground, has more leaves than the large white oak close by."); March 22, 1859 ("The great scarlet oak has now lost almost every leaf, while the white oak near it still retains them.")
I wear a thicker coat, my single thick fall coat, at last, and begin to feel my fingers cool early and late. See October 25, 1858 ("This is the coolest day thus far, reminding me that I have only a half-thick coat on. ")
October 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 26 and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The seasons and all their changes are in me.
The sugar maples are about bare, except a few small ones.
 |
| October 26, 2018 |
He says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot. ”
The largest scarlet oak that I remember hereabouts stands by the penthorum pool in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and is now in its prime. I found the sap was flowing fast in it. White birches, elms, chestnuts, Salix alba (small willows), and white maple are a long time falling. The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later.
I wear a thicker coat, my single thick fall coat, at last, and begin to feel my fingers cool early and late. One shopkeeper has hung out woollen gloves and even thick buckskin mittens by his door, foreseeing what his customers will want as soon as it is finger-cold, and determined to get the start of his fellows.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1858
The sugar maples are about bare, except a few small ones. See October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape"); October 25, 1853 ("The white maples are completely bare. ");October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.") October 25, 1858 ("I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. . . .At the pond the black birches are bare"); October 26, 1854 ("Apple trees are generally bare, as well as bass, ash, elm, maple.")
I used to call them “pump-er-gor’.See April 24, 1854 (" I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself."); and note to April, 25 1858 ("Goodwin says he heard a stake-driver several days ago.")
The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later."); October 21, 1855 ("Up Assabet. . . . [T]he scarlet oak is very bright and conspicuous. How finely its leaves are out against the sky with sharp points, especially near the top of the tree! "); October 24, 1858 ("The scarlet oak. . . is now completely scarlet and apparently has been so a few days. This alone of our indigenous deciduous trees . . .is now in its glory. "); October 30, 1855 ("Going to the new cemetery, I see that the scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness; perhaps the latest of the oaks."); November 1, 1858 ("If you wish to count the scarlet oaks. do it now. Stand on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high and the sky is clear, and every one within range of your vision will be revealed. ")
I wear a thicker coat, my single thick fall coat, at last, and begin to feel my fingers cool early and late. See October 25, 1858 ("This is the coolest day thus far, reminding me that I have only a half-thick coat on. ")
One shopkeeper has hung out woollen gloves and even thick buckskin mittens See October 14, 1856 (“[F]inger-cold to-day. Your hands instinctively find their way to your pockets”); October 20, 1859 (“It is finger-cold as I come home, and my hands find their way to my pocket.”); November 11, 1851 (”A bright, but cold day, finger-cold. One must next wear gloves, put his hands in winter quarters.”); November 11, 1853 ("I wear mittens now.")
October 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 26 and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The seasons and all their changes are in me.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
The large sugar maples on the Common are in the midst of their fall to-day.
October 21.
Cooler to-day, yet pleasant.
6 A. M. — Up Assabet.
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 ")
Cooler to-day, yet pleasant.
 |
| 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 ")
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Both by sounds and sights I am reminded that I am in the very midst of the fall.
October 17
P. M. — Up Assabet.
There are many crisped but colored leaves resting on the smooth surface of the Assabet, which for the most part is not stirred by a breath; but in some places, where the middle is rippled by a slight breeze, no leaves are seen, while the broad and perfectly smooth portions next the shore will be covered with them, as if by a current they were prevented from falling on the other parts. These leaves are chiefly of the red maple, with some white maple, etc. To be sure, they hardly begin to conceal the river, unless in some quiet coves, yet they remind me of ditches in swamps, whose surfaces are often quite concealed by leaves now. The waves made by my boat cause them to rustle, and both by sounds and sights I am reminded that I am in the very midst of the fall.
Methinks the reflections are never purer and more distinct than now at the season of the fall of the leaf, just before the cool twilight has come, when the air has a finer grain. Just as our mental reflections are more distinct at this season of the year, when the evenings grow cool and lengthen and our winter evenings with their brighter fires may be said to begin. And painted ducks, too, often come and sail or float amid the painted leaves.
Cattle are seen these days turned into the river meadows and straying far and wide. They have at length reached those “ pastures new” they dreamed of.
I see one or two large white maples quite bare.
Some late red maples are unexpectedly as fair and bright as ever, both scarlet and yellow, and still distance all competitors. There is no brighter and purer scarlet (often running into crimson) and no softer and clearer yellow than theirs now, though the greater part have quite lost their leaves. The fires I thought dulled, if not put out, a week ago seem to have burst forth again. This accounts for those red maples which were seen to be green while all around them were scarlet. They but bided their time. They were not so easily affected.
I distinguish one large red oak — the most advanced one — from black ones, by its red brown, though some others are yellow-brown and greenish. The large red oaks are about in their prime. Some are a handsome light scarlet, with yellow and green.
The Cornus sericea is a very dark crimson, though it has lost some leaves.
The Salix lucida lower leaves are all fallen (the rest are yellow). So, too, it is the. lower leaves of the willows generally which have fallen first.
Saw a small hawk come flying over the Assabet, which at first I mistook for a dove, though it was smaller. It was blunt or round-shouldered like a dove. It alighted on a small elm and did not mind a wagon passing near by. Seen through my glass twenty rods off, it had a very distinct black head, with apparently a yellowish-brown , breast and beneath and a brown back, — both, however, quite light, — and a yellowish tail with a distinct broad black band at the tip. This I saw when, in pruning itself, it was tilted or flirted up. Could it have been a sparrow hawk?
One reason why I associate perfect reflections from still water with this and a later season may be that now, by the fall of the leaves, so much more light is let in to the water. The river reflects more light, therefore, in this twilight of the year, as it were an afterglow.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 17, 1858
There are many crisped but colored leaves resting on the smooth surface of the Assabet,.Methinks the reflections are never purer and more distinct than now at the season of the fall of the leaf. See October 15, 1856 ("The water is very calm and full of reflections. Large fleets of maple and other leaves are floating on its surface as I go up the Assabet, leaves which apparently came down in a shower with yesterday morning's frost."); October 22,1854 ("Pretty hard frosts these nights. Many leaves fell last night, and the Assabet is covered with their fleets”)
The waves made by my boat cause them to rustle. See 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."); 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")
I see one or two large white maples quite bare. See note to October 14, 1858 ("The white maples are now apparently in their autumnal dress")
Could it have been a sparrow hawk? See May 4, 1855 (“ I think that what I have called the sparrow hawk falsely, and latterly pigeon hawk, is also the sharp-shinned")
By the fall of the leaves, so much more light is let in to the water. The river reflects more light, therefore, in this twilight of the year, as it were an afterglow. See August 19, 1853 ("As toward the evening of the day the lakes and streams are smooth, so in the fall, the evening of the year, the waters are smoothed more perfectly than at any other season. The day is an epitome of the year."); August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset."); November 14, 1853 ("October is the month of painted leaves, . . .it is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky. . . .This light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and what ever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.”)
 |
| October 17, 1858 |
P. M. — Up Assabet.
There are many crisped but colored leaves resting on the smooth surface of the Assabet, which for the most part is not stirred by a breath; but in some places, where the middle is rippled by a slight breeze, no leaves are seen, while the broad and perfectly smooth portions next the shore will be covered with them, as if by a current they were prevented from falling on the other parts. These leaves are chiefly of the red maple, with some white maple, etc. To be sure, they hardly begin to conceal the river, unless in some quiet coves, yet they remind me of ditches in swamps, whose surfaces are often quite concealed by leaves now. The waves made by my boat cause them to rustle, and both by sounds and sights I am reminded that I am in the very midst of the fall.
Methinks the reflections are never purer and more distinct than now at the season of the fall of the leaf, just before the cool twilight has come, when the air has a finer grain. Just as our mental reflections are more distinct at this season of the year, when the evenings grow cool and lengthen and our winter evenings with their brighter fires may be said to begin. And painted ducks, too, often come and sail or float amid the painted leaves.
Cattle are seen these days turned into the river meadows and straying far and wide. They have at length reached those “ pastures new” they dreamed of.
I see one or two large white maples quite bare.
Some late red maples are unexpectedly as fair and bright as ever, both scarlet and yellow, and still distance all competitors. There is no brighter and purer scarlet (often running into crimson) and no softer and clearer yellow than theirs now, though the greater part have quite lost their leaves. The fires I thought dulled, if not put out, a week ago seem to have burst forth again. This accounts for those red maples which were seen to be green while all around them were scarlet. They but bided their time. They were not so easily affected.
I distinguish one large red oak — the most advanced one — from black ones, by its red brown, though some others are yellow-brown and greenish. The large red oaks are about in their prime. Some are a handsome light scarlet, with yellow and green.
The Cornus sericea is a very dark crimson, though it has lost some leaves.
The Salix lucida lower leaves are all fallen (the rest are yellow). So, too, it is the. lower leaves of the willows generally which have fallen first.
Saw a small hawk come flying over the Assabet, which at first I mistook for a dove, though it was smaller. It was blunt or round-shouldered like a dove. It alighted on a small elm and did not mind a wagon passing near by. Seen through my glass twenty rods off, it had a very distinct black head, with apparently a yellowish-brown , breast and beneath and a brown back, — both, however, quite light, — and a yellowish tail with a distinct broad black band at the tip. This I saw when, in pruning itself, it was tilted or flirted up. Could it have been a sparrow hawk?
One reason why I associate perfect reflections from still water with this and a later season may be that now, by the fall of the leaves, so much more light is let in to the water. The river reflects more light, therefore, in this twilight of the year, as it were an afterglow.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 17, 1858
There are many crisped but colored leaves resting on the smooth surface of the Assabet,.Methinks the reflections are never purer and more distinct than now at the season of the fall of the leaf. See October 15, 1856 ("The water is very calm and full of reflections. Large fleets of maple and other leaves are floating on its surface as I go up the Assabet, leaves which apparently came down in a shower with yesterday morning's frost."); October 22,1854 ("Pretty hard frosts these nights. Many leaves fell last night, and the Assabet is covered with their fleets”)
The waves made by my boat cause them to rustle. See 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."); 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")
I see one or two large white maples quite bare. See note to October 14, 1858 ("The white maples are now apparently in their autumnal dress")
Could it have been a sparrow hawk? See May 4, 1855 (“ I think that what I have called the sparrow hawk falsely, and latterly pigeon hawk, is also the sharp-shinned")
By the fall of the leaves, so much more light is let in to the water. The river reflects more light, therefore, in this twilight of the year, as it were an afterglow. See August 19, 1853 ("As toward the evening of the day the lakes and streams are smooth, so in the fall, the evening of the year, the waters are smoothed more perfectly than at any other season. The day is an epitome of the year."); August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset."); November 14, 1853 ("October is the month of painted leaves, . . .it is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky. . . .This light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and what ever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.”)
What an ample share
of the light of heaven each
pond and lake enjoys!
tinyurl.com/HDT581017
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away
September 12.
Sunday. P. M. — To Cliffs.
The handsome crimson-tipped hazelnut burs now and for some time have reminded us that it was time to gather these nuts. They are worth gathering, if only to see the rich color of the fruit brought together in a quantity.
Lycopodium complanatum, how long?
Have seen the pigeon’s-egg fungus in pastures some time.
Yew berries still hold on.
The cinnamon fern has begun to yellow and wither. How rich in its decay! Sic transit gloria mundi! Die like the leaves, which are most beautiful in their decay.
Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away. Amid the October woods we hear no funereal bell, but the scream of the jay. Coming to some shady meadow’s edge, you find that the cinnamon fern has suddenly turned this rich yellow. Thus each plant surely acts its part, and lends its effect to the general impression.
See petty morel berries ripe.
Woodsia llvensis under the cave at Cliffs in fruit.
Very heavy rain all yesterday afternoon, and to-day it is somewhat cooler and clearer and the wind more northwesterly, and I see the unusual sight of ripples or waves curving up-stream off Cardinal Shore, so that the river might seem to be flowing that way.
The mountains are of a darker blue.
The spring on the west side of Fair Haven Hill is nearly dry; there is no stream flowing from it. What a disappointment to a herd of cows to find their accustomed spring dry!
Even in that little hollow on the hill side, commonly moistened by the spring, grow the soft rush, rhyncospora, etc. What an effect a little moisture on a hillside produces, though only a rod square! The Juncaceoe and Cyperaceoa soon find it out and establish themselves there.
The Panicum filiforme is very abundant in that old mullein-field of Potter’s, by the Corner road. Its slender culms are purple, and, seen in the right light, where they stand thick, they give a purple gleam to the field. More purple far than the P. sanguinale.
Some small red maples by water begun to redden.
In Hubbard’s ditched meadow, this side his grove, I see a great many large spider’s webs stretched across the ditches, about two feet from bank to bank, though the thick woven part is ten or twelve inches. They are parallel, a few inches or a foot or more apart, and more or less vertical, and attached to a main cable stretched from bank to bank. They are the yellow-backed spider, commonly large and stout but of various sizes. I count sixty-four such webs there, and in each case the spider occupies the centre, head downward. This is enough, methinks, to establish the rule. They are not afraid of turning their brains then. Many insects must be winging their way over this small river. It reminds me of the Indians catching ducks at Green Bay with nets in old times.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 12, 1858
Lycopodium complanatum, how long? See August 31, 1857 ("Lycopodium complanatum out, how long?")
Yew berries still hold on. See August 10, 1858 ("Am surprised to find the yew with ripe fruit (how long ?),. . . It fruits very sparingly, the berries growing singly here and there, on last year’s wood, and hence four to six inches below the extremities of the upturned twigs. It is the most surprising berry that we have")
The cinnamon fern has begun to yellow and wither. See September 27, 1857 ("The large common ferns (either cinnamon or interrupted) are yellowish, and also many as rich a deep brown now as ever."); September 6, 1854("The cinnamon ferns along the edge of woods next the meadow are many yellow or cinnamon, or quite brown and withered.")
Woodsia llvensis under the cave at Cliffs in fruit. See September 4, 1857 ("The sides of Cornus florida Ravine at Bateman’s Pond are a good place for ferns. There is a Woodsia Ilvensis, a new one to Concord. ")
Sunday. P. M. — To Cliffs.
The handsome crimson-tipped hazelnut burs now and for some time have reminded us that it was time to gather these nuts. They are worth gathering, if only to see the rich color of the fruit brought together in a quantity.
Lycopodium complanatum, how long?
Have seen the pigeon’s-egg fungus in pastures some time.
Yew berries still hold on.
The cinnamon fern has begun to yellow and wither. How rich in its decay! Sic transit gloria mundi! Die like the leaves, which are most beautiful in their decay.
Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away. Amid the October woods we hear no funereal bell, but the scream of the jay. Coming to some shady meadow’s edge, you find that the cinnamon fern has suddenly turned this rich yellow. Thus each plant surely acts its part, and lends its effect to the general impression.
See petty morel berries ripe.
Woodsia llvensis under the cave at Cliffs in fruit.
Very heavy rain all yesterday afternoon, and to-day it is somewhat cooler and clearer and the wind more northwesterly, and I see the unusual sight of ripples or waves curving up-stream off Cardinal Shore, so that the river might seem to be flowing that way.
The mountains are of a darker blue.
The spring on the west side of Fair Haven Hill is nearly dry; there is no stream flowing from it. What a disappointment to a herd of cows to find their accustomed spring dry!
Even in that little hollow on the hill side, commonly moistened by the spring, grow the soft rush, rhyncospora, etc. What an effect a little moisture on a hillside produces, though only a rod square! The Juncaceoe and Cyperaceoa soon find it out and establish themselves there.
The Panicum filiforme is very abundant in that old mullein-field of Potter’s, by the Corner road. Its slender culms are purple, and, seen in the right light, where they stand thick, they give a purple gleam to the field. More purple far than the P. sanguinale.
Some small red maples by water begun to redden.
In Hubbard’s ditched meadow, this side his grove, I see a great many large spider’s webs stretched across the ditches, about two feet from bank to bank, though the thick woven part is ten or twelve inches. They are parallel, a few inches or a foot or more apart, and more or less vertical, and attached to a main cable stretched from bank to bank. They are the yellow-backed spider, commonly large and stout but of various sizes. I count sixty-four such webs there, and in each case the spider occupies the centre, head downward. This is enough, methinks, to establish the rule. They are not afraid of turning their brains then. Many insects must be winging their way over this small river. It reminds me of the Indians catching ducks at Green Bay with nets in old times.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 12, 1858
Lycopodium complanatum, how long? See August 31, 1857 ("Lycopodium complanatum out, how long?")
Yew berries still hold on. See August 10, 1858 ("Am surprised to find the yew with ripe fruit (how long ?),. . . It fruits very sparingly, the berries growing singly here and there, on last year’s wood, and hence four to six inches below the extremities of the upturned twigs. It is the most surprising berry that we have")
Woodsia llvensis under the cave at Cliffs in fruit. See September 4, 1857 ("The sides of Cornus florida Ravine at Bateman’s Pond are a good place for ferns. There is a Woodsia Ilvensis, a new one to Concord. ")
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