3 September 1860 – 9 September 1860

P. M.— To Bateman’s Pond. 2 p. M.— River six and seven eighths above [sum- mer level]. Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, day, —a cloudless sky, a clear air, with, maybe, veins of coolness. As you look toward the sun, the [sic] shines more than in the spring. The dense fresh green grass which has sprung up since it was mowed, on most ground, reflects a blaze of light, as if it were morn- ing all the day. ‘The meads and slopes are enamelled with it, for there has been no drought nor withering. We see the smokes of burnings on various sides. The farmers are thus clearing up their pastures, — some, it may be, in preparation for plowing. Though it is warm enough, I notice again the swarms of fuzzy gnats dancing in the cooler air, which also is decidedly autumnal. See on the two pear trees by the Boze cellar ripe pears, some ripe several days. Most are bitter, others mealy, but one was quite sweet and good, of middling size, and prettier than most cultivated ones. It had a few faint streaks of red and was exceeding wax-like.

P. M. — To Conantum. At my Swamp Brook crossing at Willow Bay, I see where a great many little red maples have sprung up in a potato-field, apparently since the last plowing or culti- vating this year. ‘They extend more or less thickly as much as eleven rods in a northwest direction from a small tree, the only red maple in that neighborhood. And it is evidently owing to the land having been culti- vated this year that the seed vegetated there; otherwise there would now be no evidence that any such seeds had fallen here. Last year and for many years it has been a pasture. It is evident that land may be kept as a pasture and covered with grass any number of years, and though there are maples adjacent to it, none of the seed will catch in it; but at last it is plowed, and this year the seed which falls on it germinates, and if it chances not to be plowed again, and cattle are kept out, you soon have a maple wood there. So of other light- seeded trees. It is cooler these days and nights, and I move into an eastern chamber in the morning, that I may sit in the sun. The water, too, is cooler when I bathe in it, and I am reminded that this recreation has its period. I feel like a melon or other fruit laid in the sun to ripen. I grow, not gray, but yellow. Saw flocks of pigeons the 2d and 3d. I see and hear on Conantum an upland plover. The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces. What I have called Muhlenbergia sobolifera is in prime (say a week); the Jf. Mexicana not quite (say in two or three days).

P. M. — To Ball’s Hill. The brink of the river’ is still quite interesting in some respects, and to some eyes more interesting than ever. Though the willows and button-bushes have already assumed an autumnal hue, and the pontederia is extensively crisped and blackened, the dense masses of mikania, now, it may be, paler than before, are per- haps more remarkable than ever. I see some masses of it, overhanging the deep water and completely conceal- ing the bush that supports them, which are as rich a sight as any flower we have, — little terraces of contigu- ous corymbs, like mignonette (? ). Also the dodder is more revealed, also draping the brink over the water. The mikania is sometimes looped seven or eight feet high to a tree above the bushes, — a manifest vine, with its light-colored corymbs at intervals. See the little dippers back. Did I not see a marsh hawk in imperfect plumage? Quite brown, with some white midway the wings, and tips of wings black? What further adds to the beauty of the bank is the hibiscus, in prime, and the great bidens. , Having walked through a quantity of desmodium under Ball’s Hill, by the shore there (Marilandicum or rigidum), we found our pants covered with its seeds to a remarkable and amusing degree. These green scales closely covering and greening my legs reminded me of the lemna on a ditch. It amounted to a kind of coat of mail. It was the event of our walk, and we were proud to wear this badge, as if he were the most distinguished who had the most on his clothes. My companion ex- pressed a certain superstitious feeling about it, for he said he thought it would not be right to walk intention- ally amid the desmodium so as to get more of the ticks on us, nor yet to pick them off, but they must be carried about till they are rubbed off accidentally. I saw that Nature’s design was furthered even by his superstition.

The willows and button-bushes have very rapidly yellowed since I noticed them August 22d. I think it was the 25th of August that I found the lower or older leaves of the willow twigs decidedly and rapidly yellowing and decaying on a near inspection. Now the change is conspicuous at a distance.

P. M. — To Cardinal Shore. I see many seedling shrub oaks springing up in Potter’s field by the swamp-side, some (of last year) in the open pasture, but many more in the birch wood half a dozen rods west from the shrub oaks by the path. The former were dropped by the way. They plant in birch woods as in pines. This small birch wood has been a retreat for squirrels and birds. When I examine the little oaks in the open land there is always an effete acorn with them. Common rose hips as handsome as ever.

To Lowell via Boston. Rainy day. Pursh’s [sic] Brassica Napus is ‘‘ radice caulescente fusiformi, fol. laevibus, superioribus cordato-lanceolatis amplexicaulibus, inferioribus lyratis dentatis.” Fre- quently found wild. The lower leaves of mine are con- siderably bristly. Sowerby’s Botany at Cambridge says of B. campestris, “ Pods upright, cylindrical, or very obscurely quadrangular, veiny, the seeds slightly pro- jecting, the beak awl-shaped, striated, square at its base.” B. Napus, — “Pod on a slender stalk, spread- ing, round, beaded, with an angular point.” Mine is apparently B. Napus, judging from pods, for the lower leaves are all eaten. Vide young plants in spring.”

In Lowell. — My host says that the ther- mometer was at 80° yesterday morning, and this morn- ing is at 52°. Sudden coolness. * [The quotation is from Persoon’s Synopsis Plantarum] Clears up in afternoon, and I walk down the Merri- mack on the north bank. I see very large plants of the lanceolate thistle, four feet high and very branching. Also Aster cordata with the corymbosus. Concord River has a high and hard bank at its mouth, maybe thirty feet high on the east side; and my host thinks it was originally about as high on the west side, where now it is much lower and flat, having been dug down. There is a small isle in the middle of the mouth. There are rips in the Merrimack just below the - mouth of the Concord. There is a fall and dam in the Concord at what was Hurd’s factory, —the principal fall on the Concord, in Lowell, — one at a bleachery above, and at Whipple’s, — three in all below Billerica dam.