10 October 1859 – 16 October 1859

White-throated sparrows in yard and close up to house, together with myrtle-birds (which fly up against side of house and alight on window-sills) and, I think, tree sparrows ? Colder weather, and the cat’s fur grows.

P.M. — To Cliffs. Looking under large oaks, black and white, the acorns appear to have fallen or been gathered by squirrels, ete. I see in many distant places stout twigs (black or scarlet oak) three or four inches long which have been gnawed off by the squirrels, with four to seven acorns on each, and left on the ground. These twigs have been gnawed off on each side of the nuts in order to make them more portable, I suppose. The nuts all abstracted and sides of the cups . i broken to get them out. ar The note of the chickadee, heard now in cooler weather and above many fallen leaves, has a new sig- nificance. There was a very severe frost this morning (ground stiffened), probably a chestnut-opening frost, a season- ripener, opener of the burs that inclose the Indian summer. Such is the cold of early or middle October. The leaves and weeds had that stiff, hoary appearance.

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close. The common goldenrods on railroad causeway have begun to look hoary or gray, the down showing itself, — that November feature. I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences. There are now apparently very few ferns left (except the evergreen ones), and those are in sheltered places. This morning’s frost will nearly finish them. Now for lycopodiums (the dendroideum not yet apparently in bloom), the dendroideum and lucidulum, etc., — how vivid a green ! — lifting their heads above the moist fallen leaves. We have now fairly begun to be surrounded with the brown of withered foliage, since the young white oaks have withered. This phenomenon begins with the very earliest frost (as this year August 17th), which kills some ferns and other most sensitive plants; and so gradually the plants, or their leaves, are killed and withered that we scarcely notice it till we are surrounded with the scenery of November.’ I see quinces commonly left out yet, though apples are gathered. Probably their downy coats defend them. Going through Clintonia Swamp, I see many of those buff-brown puffballs one to two inches [in] diameter on the ground, partly open and with water in them and partly entire as yet, with a cracked surface. The willows on the Turnpike resound with the hum of bees, almost as in spring! I see apparently yellow wasps, hornets, and small bees attracted by something on their twigs.

P. M. — Up Assabet. Many of thesmall hypericums, mutilum and Canadense, have survived the frosts as yet, after all. The hemlock seed is now in the midst of its fall, some of it, with the leaves, floating on the river. The cones, being thus expanded, are more conspicuous on the trees. Many feverwort berries are fresh yet, though the leaves are quite withered. They are remarkable for their peculiar color. The thorn fruit on the hill is considerably past prime, though abundant and reddening the bushes still. The common alder up the Assabet is nerved like the hornbeam. I see no acorns on the trees. They appear to have all fallen before this. The swamp amelanchier is leafing again, as usual. What a pleasing phenomenon, perhaps an Indian- summer growth, an anticipation of the spring, like the notes of birds and frogs, etc., an evidence of warmth and genialness. Its buds are annually awakened by the October sun as if it were spring. The shad-bush is leafing again by the sunny swamp-side. It is like a youthful or poetic thought in old age. Several times I have been cheered by this sight when surveying in former years. The chickadee seems to lisp a sweeter note at the sight of it. J would not fear the winter more than the shad-bush which puts forth fresh and tender leaves on its approach. In the fall I will take this for my coat-of-arms. It seems to detain the sun that ex- pands it. These twigs are so full of life that they can hardly contain themselves. They ignore winter. They anticipate spring. What faith! Away in some warm and sheltered recess in the swamp you find where these leaves have expanded. It is a foretaste of spring. In my latter years, let me have some shad-bush thoughts.’ 1 perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom for several rods around, which at first I refer to the decaying leaves. I see where dodder was killed, with the button-bush, perhaps a week. British naturalists very generally apologize to the reader for having devoted their attention to natural history to the neglect of some important duty.

9 a.m. — Toand around Flint’s Pond with Blake. A fine Indian-summer day. The 6th and 10th were quite cool, and any particularly warm days since may be called Indian summer (? ), I think. We sit on the rock on Pine Hill overlooking Walden. There is a thick haze almost entirely concealing the mountains. ! There is wind enough to raise waves on the pond and make it bluer. What strikes me in the scenery here now is the contrast of the unusually blue water with the bril- liant-tinted woods around it. The tints generally may be about at their height. The earth appears like a great inverted shield painted yellow and red, or with im- bricated scales of that color, and a blue navel in the middle where the pond lies, and a distant circumference of whitish haze. The nearer woods, where chestnuts ~ grow, are a mass of warm, glowing [yellow] (though the larger chestnuts have lost the greater part of their leaves and generally you wade through rustling chestnut leaves in the woods), but on other sides the red and yellow are intermixed. The red, probably of scarlet oaks on the south of Fair Haven Hill, is very fair. The beech tree at Baker’s fence is past prime and many leaves fallen. The shrub oak acorns are now all fallen, —only one or two left on, — and their cups, which are still left on, are apparently somewhat incurved at the edge as they have dried, so that probably they would not hold the acom now. ‘The ground is strewn also with red oak acorns now, and, as far as I can discover, acorns of all kinds have fallen. At Baker’s wall two of the walnut trees are bare but full of green nuts (in their green cases), which make a very pretty sight as they wave in the wind. So distinct you could count every one against the sky, for there is not a.leaf on these trees, but other walnuts near by are yet full of leaves. You have the green nut contrasted with the clean gray trunks and limbs. These are pig- nut-shaped. The chestnuts generally have not yet fallen, though many have. I find under one tree a great many burs, apparently not cast down by squirrels — for I see no marks of their teeth — and not yet so opened that any of the nuts fall out. They do not all wait till frosts open the burs before they fall, then. I see a black snake, and also a striped snake, out this warm day. I see and hear many hawks for some weeks past. On the 11th I saw one as small as I ever saw, — I thought not larger than a kingbird, — as I stood on the Cliffs, hovering over the wood about on a level with me. It sailed directly only a rod or two, then flapped its wings fast and sailed on a rod or two further. Was it not a sparrow hawk? Dr. Kneeland says he sees it hereabouts and distinguishes it partly by its smaller size. See great numbers of crickets in the cross-road from Tuttle’s to Alcott’s. Populus grandidentata up Assabet yellow, but not quite at height. Of my list of fruits for *54, all those named before August 15th were done this year by August Ist at least, except that the sumach berries still hold on, and bunch-berries undoubtedly, where they grow, also Jersey tea fruit, waxwork, privet common in gardens. Possibly some poke berries, still green, may turn, though the vines [szc] are killed. The birds may not have gathered quite all the mountain-ash (ours was stripped in about one day by them a week or two ago), and uva- ursi, of course, holds on. Perhaps trientalis fruit holds on. I have not noticed Aralia nudicaulis berries for some weeks, nor high blackberries for two or three weeks. Wild apples are perhaps now at height. Cat-tail tripe before July 31st. Alternate cornel fell long ago. Elder-berries are gone, how long? Muskmelons and watermelons with the early frosts of September 16th this year, except those up to this time in cellar. Vibur- num dentatum probably done before October Ist. i Those on that list after October 15th (inclusive) stand thus: — Barberries are gathered. Thorn-apples much past prime, but many bushes still red with them. Prinos berries fair as ever. Red choke-berries done (though they may dry on). Spikenard (not seen). Fever-bush (not seen).! Arum probably done (?).? Vaccinium Oxycoccus (not seen). Grapes all fallen, probably a week or more; generally before October. Acorns of all kinds fallen (been falling for three or four weeks) ; can find none on the trees.° Rose hips (not noticed) .* Viburnum Lentago probably done several weeks. Poison-dogwood all ripe some time. Cornus sericea generally fallen by September 30th; all probably by the 12th. Waxwork (not seen). Woodbine (not seen). Fever-wort many still fresh, their peculiar corn-yellow, along the withering stems, October 13th; all leaves withered. Zizania, some black left (and green) September 30th. Checkerberries; see none yet full grown and colored, but there are very few this year. Shrub oak acorns all fallen (can find but one or two left).5 The smilacina berries of both kinds more or less shrivelled for some weeks. Yew probably done some time. Maple viburnum (not seen), probably done several weeks. ® Yes; black oak and a great many shrub oak. ‘ Some sweet-briar hips frost-bitten before complete change. 5 ! Hardly half fallen in another place. Mitchella ripe a good while. Medeola probably fallen several weeks. Common cranberry (not seen). Pontederia seeds are still falling, a few. Asclepias Cornutt apparently not yet generally discounts Pignuts generally still green on trees. Wild pears (not seen). Button-bush balls (now too brown for beauty). Green-briar (condition not noticed). Sweet-briar (some hips apparently frost-bitten!). Bass berries mostly dry and brown September 30th. Tupelo (not seen of late). Bayberries (picked by birds ?). Of the above-named list, etc., those still persistent and interesting, then, are: — * Sumach berries of different kinds. Bunchberries where found. Privet berries “ * * Waxwork (?). Possibly a little poke (? ). Mountain-ash (??). * Amphicarpeea, some time. * Uva-ursi. * Wild apples. * Barberries left. * Some thorn-apples. * Celtis, how long? * Prinos. Is there any spikenard ? “ “ fever-bush ? ? < =e Faerun? * Cranberries, two kinds.4 * The Vaccinium Oxycoccus mostly quite ripened by frost the 17th. * Rose hips, all kinds. * Poison-dogwood. * R. Toxicodendron. * Some fever-wort. * Checkerberries, hardly ripe. * Ground-nut. Smilacina (two kinds, at least), shrivelled. * Mitchella, fair. * Mallows. Asclepiases. * Hickory-nuts. * Green-briar (?). ) * Bayberries. Of which those starred are the only noticeable ones, and only the following probably are in their mellow prime now: — Uva-ursi. Wild apples. Prinos. Cranberries. Rose hips. Mitchella. Hickory-nuts (hardly yet). Bayberries. Mallows. Some Rhus radicans was leafless on the 13th, and some tupelos bare maybe a week or more, and button- bushes nearly bare. My little white pines by Walden are now conspicuous in their rows, the grass, etc., having withered to tawny and the blackberry turned to scarlet. They have been almost inobvious through the summer. The dark ever- green leaves of the checkerberry also attract us now amid the shrub oaks, as on the southwest of Pine Hill. I hear a man laughed at because he went to Europe twice in search of an imaginary wife who, he thought, was there, though he had never seen nor heard of her. ‘ But the majority have gone further while they stayed in America, have actually allied themselves to one whom they thought their wife and found out their mistake too late to mend it. It would be cruel to laugh at these. Wise, the balloonist, says that he lost a balloon “in a juniper bog in the State of Maine,” which he mistook for a “prairie.” Does he mean a larchswamp?' Balloon- ists speak of hearing dogs bark at night and wagons rumbling over bridges. Arbor-vite falling (seeds), how long ?

P. M. — To Botrychium Swamp. A cold northwest wind. . | I see some black oak acorns on the trees still and in some places at least half the shrub oak acorns. The last are handsomer now that they have turned somuch darker. I go along the east edge of Poplar Hill. This very cold and windy day, now that so many leaves have fallen, I begin to notice the silveriness of willows blown up in the wind, — a November sight. The hickories at Poplar Hill (and elsewhere, as far as I perceive) are all past prime now and most half-with- ered or bare, very different from last year. In warmer autumns, if I remember rightly, they last several weeks later than this in some localities, one succeeding an- other with its splendid glow, an evidence of the genial- rs ness of the season. In cool and moist places, in a gen- ial year, some are preserved green after others have changed, and by- their later change and glow they pro- long the season of autumnal tints very agreeably. This is a cold fall. The larches in A. Heywood’s swamp, though a yel- lower green than the white pines, are not yet sharply distinguished from them by their form, as they will be. The oaks generally are very fair now at a distance. Standing on this hilltop this cold and blustering day, when dark and slate-colored clouds are flitting over the sky, the beauty of the scenery is enhanced by the con- trast in the short intervals of sunshine. The whole sur- face of the country, both young woodlands and full- grown forests, whether they clothe sides of hills or their lit tops are seen over a ridge, — the birch phalanxes and huckleberry flocks [?], etc., even to the horizon, is like a rug of many brilliant colors, with the towns in the more open and tawny spaces. The beauty or effect of the scene is enhanced, if, standing here, you see far in the horizon the red regiments of oaks alternately lit up by the sun and dimmed by the passing shadow of a cloud. As the shadows of these cold clouds flit across the landscape, the red banners of distant forests are lit up or disappear like the colors of a thousand regiments. Pratt says that he planted a ground-nut in his garden in good soil, but they grew no bigger than a bean. He did not know but it would take more than one year, even if he planted the tuber. The yellow birches are generally bare. Juniperus repens leaves have fallen, perhaps with red cedar. The ash trees I see to-day are quite bare, apparently several or some days. The little leaves of the mitchella, with a whitish midrib and veins, lying generally flat on the mossy ground, perhaps about the base of a tree, with their bright-scarlet twin berries sprinkled over them, may properly be said to checker the ground. Now, particu- larly, they are noticed amid the fallen leaves. The bayberry leaves have fallen, and all the berries are gone. I suppose the birds have eaten them. Moun- tain laurel leaves are fallen. The yellow birches are bare, revealing the fruit (the short, thick brown catkins) now ripe and ready to scale off. How full the trees are! About as thick as the leaves were. The fever-bush is for the most part bare, and I see no berries. Rhus radicans too is bare. The maidenhair is for the most part withered. It is not evergreen, then. The mountain sumach which I see is bare, and some smooth ditto. That appears to be Aspidium cristatum which I find evergreen in swamps, but no fertile fronds now. It is broader and denser than the plate of the English one. It cannot be a described variety of spinulosum, for it is only once pinnate. I think I see myrtle-birds on white birches, and oa they are the birds I saw on them a week or two ago, — apparently, or probably, after the birch lice. See a Fringilla hyemalis. 'The chickadees sing as if at home. They are not travelling singers hired by any Barnum. Theirs is an honest, homely, heartfelt melody. Shall not the voice of man express as much content as the note of a bird? ™~, Botrychium Lunaria has shed pollen, how long? The little larches in midst of Gowing’s Swamp already changed, before others elsewhere. Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation. We hear of cow-commons and ministerial lots, but we want men- commons and lay lots, inalienable forever. Let us keep the New World new, preserve all the advantages of living in the country. There is meadow and pasture and wood-lot for the town’s poor. Why not a forest and huckleberry-field for the town’s rich ? All Walden Wood might have been preserved for our park forever, with Walden in its midst, and the Easterbrooks Country, an unoccupied area of some four square miles, might have been our huckleberry-field. If any owners of these tracts are about to leave the world without natural heirs who need or deserve to be specially remembered, they will do wisely to abandon their possession to all, and not will them to some individual who perhaps has enough already. As some give to Harvard College or another institution, why might not another give a forest or huckleberry-field to Concord? A town is an institution which deserves to be remembered. We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? We are all schoolmasters, and our school- house is the universe. To attend chiefly to the desk or schoolhouse while we neglect the scenery in which it is placed is absurd. If we do not look out we shall find our fine schoolhouse standing in a cow-yard at last. The Kalmia glauca, now falling, is quite a brilliant scarlet. In this case you have the fresh liquid-green leaves of this year above the brilliant scarlet ones of last year. Most other evergreens exhibit only a con- trast of green with yellow or yellowish. The balm-of-Gileads by Mrs. Ripley’s bare. Those beyond Barrett’s Bridge green and full of leaves. The spruce leaves have fallen, — how long ? — and its seeds are falling. Larch seeds falling. Celtis berries ripe, how long? Solanum Dulcamara berries linger over water but mostly are shrivelled. Canoe birch is now at least half fallen or more, apparently with the small white; looks in color like an aspen.

Sunday. P. M.— Paddle to Puffer’s and thence walk to Ledum Swamp and Conant’s Wood. A cold, clear, Novemberish day. The wind goes down and we do not sail. The button-bushes are just bare, and the black willows partly so, and the mikania all fairly gray now. I see the button-bush balls reflected on each side, and each wool-grass head and recurved withered sedge or rush is also doubled by the reflection. The Scirpus lacustris is generally brown, the Juncus miliaris greener. It is rather too cool to sit still in the boat unless in a sunny and sheltered place. I have not been on the river for some time, and it is the more novel to me this cool day. When I get to Willow Bay I see the new musquash- houses erected, conspicuous on the now nearly leafless shores. ‘To me this 1s an important and suggestive sight, as, perchance, in some countries new haystacks —s in the yards; as to the Esquimaux the erection of winter houses. I remember this phenomenon annually for thirty years. A more constant phenomenon here than the new haystacks in the yard, for they were erected here probably before man dwelt here and may still be erected here when man has departed. For thirty years I have annually observed, about this time or earlier, the freshly erected winter lodges of the musquash along the riverside, reminding us that, if we have ne gypsies, we have a more indigenous race of furry, quadrupedal men maintaining their ground in our midst still. This may not be an annual phenomenon to you. It may not be in the Greenwich almanac or ephemeris, but it has an important place in my Kalen- dar. So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the mus- quash rising above the withered pontederia and flags. There will be some reference to it, by way of parable or otherwise, in my New Testament. Surely, it is a defect in our Bible that it is not truly ours, but a Hebrew Bible. The most pertinent illustrations for us are to be drawn, not from Egypt or Babylonia, but from New England. Talk about learning our letters and being literate! Why, the roots of letters are things. Natural objects and phenomena are the original symbols or types which express our thoughts and feelings, and yet American scholars, having little or no root in the soil, commonly strive with all their might to confine themselves to the imported symbols alone. All the true growth and experience, the living speech, they would fain reject as * Americanisms.” It is the old error, which the church, the state, the school ever commit, choosing darkness rather than light, holding fast to the old and to tradition. A more intimate knowledge, a deeper experience, will surely originate a word. When I really know that our river pursues a serpentine course to the Merrimack, shall I continue to describe it by referring to some other river no older than itself which is like it, and call it a meander ? It is no more meandering than the Meander is musketaquidding. As well sing of the nightingale here as the Meander. What if there were a tanff on words, on language, for the encouragement of home manufactures? Have we not the genius to coin our own? Let the schoolmaster distinguish the true from the counterfeit. 3 They go on publishing the “chronological cycles” and “movable festivals of the Church’ and the like from mere habit, but how insignificant are these com- pared with the annual phenomena of your hfe, which fall within your experience! The signs of the zodiac are not nearly of that significance to me that the sight of a dead sucker in the spring is. That is the occasion for an immovable festival in my church. Another kind of Lent then begins in my thoughts than you wot of. I am satisfied then to live on fish alone for a season. Men attach a false importance to celestial phenomena as compared with terrestrial, as if it were more respect- able and elevating to watch your neighbors than to mind your own affairs. The nodes of the stars are not the knots we have to untie. The phenomena of our year are one thing, those of the almanac another. ~~ \ For October, for instance, instead of making the sun enter the sign of the scorpion, I would much sooner make him enter a musquash-house. Astronomy is a fashionable study, patronized by princes, but not fungi. “Royal Astronomer.”’ The snapping turtle, too, must find a place among the constellations, though it may have to supplant some doubtful characters already there. If there is no place for him overhead, he can serve us bravely underneath, supporting the earth. This clear, cold, Novemberish light is inspiriting. Some twigs which are bare and weeds begin to glitter with hoary light. The very edge or outline of a tawny or russet hill has this hoary light on it. Your thoughts sparkle like the water surface and the downy twigs. From the shore you look back at the silver-plated river. Every rain exposes new arrowheads. We stop at Clamshell and dabble for a moment in the relics of a departed race. Where we landed in front of Puffer’s, found a jug which the haymakers had left in the bushes. Hid our boat there in a clump of willows, and though the ends stuck out, being a pale green and whitish, they were not visible or distinguishable at a little distance. Passed through the sandy potato-field at Witherell’s cellar-hole. Potatoes not dug; looking late and neg- — lected now; the very vines almost vanished on some sandier hills. When we emerged from the pleasant footpath through the birches into Witherell Glade, looking along it toward the westering sun, the glittering white tufts of the Andropogon scoparius, lit up by the sun, were affect- ingly fair and cheering to behold. It was already a cheerful Novemberish scene. A narrow glade stretch- ing east and west between a dense birch wood, now half bare, and a ruddy oak wood on the upper side, a ground covered with tawny stubble and fine withered grass and cistuses. Looking westward along it, your se j ., eye fell on these lit tufts of andropogon,' their ° If eerie half raised a foot or more above the sa ground, a lighter and more brilliant white- ness than the downiest cloud presents (though seen on one side they are grayish).? Even the lespede- zas stand like frost-covered wands, and now hoary goldenrods and some bright-red blackberry vines amid the tawny grass are in harmony with the rest; and if you sharpen and rightly intend your eye you see the gleaming lines of gossamer (stretching from stubble to stubble over the whole surface) which you are breaking. How cheerful these cold but bright white waving tufts! They reflect all the sun’s light without a particle of his heat, or yellow rays. A thousand such tufts now catch up the sun and send to us its light but not heat. His heat is being steadily withdrawn from us. Light without heat is getting to be the prevailing phenomenon of the day now. We economize all the warmth we get now. The frost of the 11th, which stiffened the ground, made new havoc with vegetation, as I perceive. Many plants have ceased to bloom, no doubt. Many Dzplo- pappus linarwfolvus are gone to seed, and yellowish globes. Such are the stages in the year’s decline. The flowers are at the mercy of the frosts. Places where erechthites grows, more or less bare, in sprout- lands, look quite black and white (black withered leaves and white down) and wintry. At Ledum Swamp, feeling to find the Vaccinium Oxycoccus berries, I am struck with the coldness of the wet sphagnum, as if I put my hands into a moss in Labrador, —a sort of winter lingering the summer through there. To my surprise, now at 3.30 P.M., some of the sphagnum in the shade is still stiff with frost, and when I break it I see the glistening spicule. This is the most startling evidence of winter as yet. For only on the morning of the 11th was there any stiffening of the ground elsewhere. Also in the high sedgy sprout-land south of this swamp, I see hoary or frost-like patches of sedge amid the rest, where all is dry; as if in such places (the lowest) the frost had com- pletely bleached the grass so that it now looks like frost. I think that that is the case. It is remarkable how, when a wood has been cut (perhaps where the soil was light) and frosts for a long while prevent a new wood from springing up there, that fine sedge (Carex Pennsylvanica ?) will densely cover the ground amid the stumps and dead sprouts. It is the most hardy and native of grasses there. This is the grass of the sprout-lands and woods. It wants only the sun and a reasonably dry soil. Then there are the grasses and sedges of the meadows, but the cul- tivated fields and the pastures are commonly clothed with introduced grasses. The nesza is all withered, also the woodwardia. The ledum and Andromeda Polijolia leaves have fallen. The Kalmia glauca is still falling. The spruce, also, has fallen. The ledum smells like a bee, — that peculiar scent they have. C., too, perceives it. See a hairy woodpecker on a burnt pitch pine. He distinctly rests on his tail constantly. With what vigor he taps and bores the bark, making it fly far and wide, and then darts off with a sharp whistle! I remark how still it is to-day, really Sabbath-like. This day, at least, we do not hear the rattle of cars nor the whistle. I cannot realize that the country was often as still as this twenty years ago. Returning, the river is perfectly still and smooth. The broad, shallow’ water on each side, bathing the withered grass, looks as if it were ready to put on its veil of ice at any moment. It seems positively to invite the access of frost. I seem to hear already the creaking, shivering sound of ice there, broken by the undula- tions my boat makes. So near are we to winter. Then, nearer home, I hear two or three song sparrows on the button-bushes sing as in spring, — that memorable tin- kle, — as if it would be last as it was first. The few blackish leaves of pontederia rising above the water now resemble ducks at a distance, and so help to conceal them now that they are returning. The weeds are dressed in their frost jackets, naked down to their close-fitting downy or flannel shirts. Like athletes they challenge the winter, these bare twigs. This cold refines and condenses us. Our spirits are strong, like that pint of cider in the middle of a frozen barrel. ; The cool, placid, silver-plated waters at even coolly await the frost. ‘The musquash is steadily adding to his winter lodge. There is no need of supposing a peculiar instinct telling him how high to build his cabin. He has had a longer experience in this river-yalley than we. Evergreens, I should say, fall early, both the coniferous and the broad-leaved. That election-cake fungus which is still growing (as for some months) appears to be a Boletus. I love to get out of cultivated fields where I walk on an imported sod, on English grass, and walk in the fine sedge of woodland hollows, on an American sward. In the former case my thoughts are heavy and lumpish, as if I fed on turnips. In the other I nibble ground- nuts. Your hands begin to be cool, rowing, now. At many a place in sprout-lands, where the sedge is peculiarly flat and white or hoary, I put down my hand to feel if there is frost on it. It must be the trace of frost. Since the frost of the 11th, the grass and stubble has received another coat of tawny. That andropogon bright feathery top may be put with the clematis seed and tail. Only this cold, clear sky can light them up thus. The farmer begins to calculate how much longer he can safely leave his potatoes out. Kach ball of the button-bush reflected in the silvery water by the riverside appears to me as distinct and important as a star in the heavens viewed through “ optic glass.’ This, too, deserves its Kepler and Galileo. As nature generally, on the advent of frost, puts on a russet and tawny dress, so is not man clad more in har- mony with nature in the fall in a tawny suit or the dif- ferent hues of Vermont gray? I would fain see him glitter like a sweet-fern twig between me and the sun. A few green yellow lily pads lie on the surface waiting to be frozen in. All the Lycopodium complanatum I see to-day has shed its pollen.