24 August 1857 – 30 August 1857

A. M.— Ride to Austin Bacon’s, Na- tick. On the left hand, just this side the centre of Wayland, I measure the largest, or northernmost, of two large elms standing in front of an old house. At four feet from the ground, where, looking from one side, is the smallest place between the ground and the branches, it is seventeen feet in circumference, but there is a bulge on the north side for five feet upward. At five feet it divides to two branches, and each of these soon divides again. A. Bacon showed me a drawing apparatus which he said he invented, very simple and convenient, also micro- scopes and many glasses for them which he made. Showed me an exotic called “cypress,” which he said had spread from the cemetery over the neighboring fields. Did not know what it was. Is it not Euphorbia Cyparissias ? and does it not grow by the north road- side east of Jarvis’s?! I measured a scarlet oak northeast of his house, on land of the heirs of John Bacon, which at seven feet from the ground, or the smallest place below the branches, was ten feet eight inches in circumference, at one foot from ground sixteen and one fourth feet in circumference. It branched at twelve feet into three. Its trunk tapered or lessened very gradually and regu- larly from the ground to the smallest place, after the true Eddystone Lighthouse fashion. It has a large and handsome top, rather high than spreading (spreads about three and a half rods), but the branches often dead at the ends. This has grown considerably since Emerson measured; vide his account. Bacon says that E. pronounced it the largest oak in the State. Showed us an elm on the north side of the same field, some ten feet in circumference, which he said was as large in 1714, his grandmother having remembered it nearly so long. There was a dead Rhus radicans on it two inches in diameter. In the meadow south of this field, we looked for the Drosera filiformis, which formerly grew there, but could not find it. Got a specimen of very red clover, said to be from the field of Waterloo, in front of the house near the schoolhouse on the hill. Returned eastward over a bare hill with some walnuts on it, formerly called Pine Hill, from whence a very good view of the new town of Natick. On the northeast base of this hill Bacon pointed out to me what he called Indian corn-hills, in heavy, moist pasture ground where had been a pine wood. The hillocks were in irregular rows four feet apart which ran along the side of the hill, and were much larger than you would expect after this lapse of time. I was confident that if Indian, they could not be very old, perhaps not more than a century or so, for such could never have been made with the ancient Indian hoes, —clamshells, stones, or the like, — but with the aid of plows and white men’s hoes. Also pointed out to me what he thought the home site of an Indian squaw marked by a buckthorn bush by the wall. These hillocks were like tussocks with lichens thick on them, and B. thought that the rows were not run- ning as a white man|’s] with furrow. We crossed the road which runs east and west, and, in the low ground on the south side, saw a white oak and a red maple, each forty or fifty feet high, which had fairly grown together for three or more feet upward from the ground. Also, near by, a large white ash which though healthy bore a mark or scar where a branch had been broken off and stripped down the trunk. B. said that one of his ancestors, perhaps his grandfather, before the Revolution, went to climb this tree, and reached up and took hold of this branch, which he stripped down, and this was the scar! Under the dead bark of this tree saw several large crickets of a rare kind. They had a peculiar naked and tender look, with branched legs and a rounded incurved front. Red cohosh grows along a wall in low ground close by. We ascended a ridge hill northeast of this, or east by south of Bacon’s house, on the north end of which Squaw Poquet, as well as her father, who was a powwow, before her, lived. Bacon thought that powwows com- monly withdrew at last to the northeast side of a hill and lived alone. We saw the remains of apple trees in the woods, which she had planted. B. thought apple trees did not now grow so large in New England as formerly, that they only grew to be one foot in diameter and then began to decay, whereas they formerly grew to be two or three and even sometimes four feet in diameter. The Corallorhiza multiflora was common in these woods, and out. The Galium circezans leaves taste very much like licorice and, according to B., produce a great flow of water, also make you perspire and are good for a cold. We came down northward to the Boston and Worces- ter turnpike, by the side of which the Malazxis lilizfolia grows, though we did not find it. We waded into Coos Swamp on the south side the turnpike to find the ledum, but did not succeed. B. is sure it grows there. This is a large swamp with a small pond, or pond-hole, in the midst and the usual variety — of shrubs. I noticed small spruces, high blueberry, the water andromeda, rhodora, Vaccinium dumosum (hairy) ripe, Kalmia glauca, Decodon verticillatus, etc. B. says that the arbor-vitze grows indigenously in pretty large patches in Needham; that Cochituate Pond is only between three and four miles long, or five including the meadows that are flowed, yet it has been called even ten miles long. B. gave me a stone with very pretty black markings like jungermannias, from a blasting on the aqueduct in Natick. Some refer it to electricity. According to Guizot at the Montreal meeting the other day, Mt. Washington is 6285 feet above high- water mark at Portland.

Tuesday. P.M.— To Hill and meadow.

Wednesday. P. M.— Up Assabet with Bradford and Hoar. B. tells me he found the Malaxis lilizfolia on Kineo. Saw there a tame gull as large as a hen, brown dove- color. A lumberer called some timber “frowy.” B. has found Cassia Chamecrista by the side of the back road between Lincoln and Waltham, about two miles this side of Waltham.

Thursday. P. M.—To Conantum, high- blackberrying. Detected a, to me, new kind of high blackberry on the edge of the cliff beyond Conant’s wall on Lee’s ground,—-a long-peduncled (or pedicelled), leafy- racemed (somewhat panicled), erect blackberry. It has the aspect of R. Canadensis become erect, three or four feet high. The racemes (or panicles ?) leafy, with simple ovate and broad-lanceolate leaves; loose, few flowered (ten or twelve); peduncles (or pedicels) one to two or more inches long, often branched, with bracts midway, in fruit, at least, drooping. Perhaps the terminal flowers open first. Stem angular and furrowed much like that of R. villosus, leaf-stalks more prickly; leaves broader, thinner, and less pointed, smooth above; beneath, as well as young branches, much smoother than R. vil- losus; lower leaves ternate and, if I remember, some- times quinate. Berries of good size, globular, of very few, large grains, very glossy, of a lively flavor, when young of a peculiar light pink; sepals less recurved when ripe than those of villosus. It is apparently Bigelow’s R. frondosus made a variety by Gray; but see flowers.

Polygonum Pennsylvanicum by bank, how long? R. W. E. says that he saw Asclepias tuberosa abundant and in bloom on Naushon last week; also a sassafras stump three feet across. The deer escape by running to the mainland, and in winter cross on the ice. The last winter they lost about one hundred and fifty sheep, whose remains have never been found. Perhaps they were carried off on the ice by the sea. Looking through a glass, E. saw vessels sailing near Martha’s Vineyard with full sails, yet the water about them appeared per- fectly smooth, and reflected the vessels. ‘They thought this reflection a mirage, 2. e. from a haze.

Sunday. P. M. — To Conantum. Small botrychium, not long. The flower of Cicuta maculata smells like the leaves of the golden senecio. Collinsonia has been out apparently three or four days. Polygonum tenue at Bittern Cliff, how long ?