22 February 1858 – 28 February 1858

I see, at Minot Pratt’s, rhodora in bloom in a pitcher with water andromeda.

Ice at Walden eleven inches thick and very soggy, sinking to a level with the water, though there is but a trifling quantity of snow on it. Does it not commonly begin to be soggy even thus early, and thick, sinking deeper? I hear of sudden openings in ponds — as at Cochituate — this year.

A. M. — To Hill. The hedges on the Hill are all cut off. The journals think they cannot say too much on improvements in husbandry. It is a safe theme, like piety. But for me, as for one of these farms brushed up, — a model farm, — I had as lief see a patent churn and a man turning | it. It is simply a place where somebody is making money.? I see a snow bunting, though it is pleasant and warm.

P. M. — To White Pond. I see twenty-four cones brought together under one pitch pine in a field, evidently gnawed off by a squirrel, but not opened. Rice says he saw a whistler (?) duck to-day.