Sumach

Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862 (Creator)

January 30, 1856

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Accompanying Journal Entry: "8 A.M. It has just begun to snow, -- those little round dry pellets like shot. George Minott says that he was standing with Bowers (?) and Joe Barrett near Dr. Heywoodís barn in the September gale, and saw an elm, twice as big as that which broke off before his house, break off ten feet from the ground, -- splinter all up, -- and the barn bent and gave so that he thought it was time to be moving. He saw stones ìas big as that [air-tight] stove, blown right out of the wall.î So, by bending to the blast, he made his way home. All the small buildings on the Walden road across the brook were blown back toward the brook. Minott lost the roof of his shed. The wind was southerly. As I walked above the old stone bridge on the 27th, I saw where the river had recently been open under the wooded bank on the west side; and recent sawdust and shavings from the pail-factory, and also the ends of saplings and limbs of trees which had been bent down by the ice, were frozen in. In some places some water stood above the ice, and as I stood there, I saw and heard it gurgle up through a crevice and spread over the ice. This was the influence of Loringís Brook, far above. Stopped snowing before noon, not having amounted to anything. P.M. Measured to see what difference there was in the depth of the snow in different adjacent fields as nearly as possible like and similarly situated. Commenced fifteen or twenty rods east of the railroad and measured across Hubbardís (?), Stowís, and Collierís fields towards a point on the south side of the last, twenty-five rods east of Trillium Woods. These three fields were nearly level, somewhat meadow, especially the second, and at least twenty-five rods from the nearest disturbing influence, such as the railroad embankment or a wood. The walls, no doubt, gave the first and third fields somewhat more snow. Yet I am inclined to think that in this trial the snow is shallower very nearly as the fields are moist. It is three inches shallower here than nearer the railroad, where I measured yesterday, showing the effect of that bank very clearly, six to fifteen rods of, but the average is the same obtained yesterday for open fields east and west of railroad, and proves the truth of that measuring. The snow in the first field measured two inches more than that in the second! The andromeda swamp gave 26 Ω + 2 (on the 12th it was 23 4/5 3). It had probably been more than 2 Ω feet, say on the 16th. The Andromeda is now quite covered, and I walk on the crust over an almost uninterrupted plain there; only a few blueberries and (1 add 2 for ice at bottom = 16 -. 2 +2=28 Ω +. 3 +2=25 4/5.) Andromeda paniculate rise above it. Near the last, I break through. It is so light beneath that the crust breaks there in great cakes under my feet, and immediately falls about a foot, making a great hole, so that once pushing my way through for regularly stepping is out of the question in the weak places makes a pretty good path. In Wheelerís squirrel wood, which on the 12th gave 10 1 inches of snow now gives 152, which is what I should have judged from the changes in Trillium Wood. They are affected alike. The sprout-land just south of this wood gives as average of fourteen measurements 12 4/10,3 which I suspect is too much, it is so sheltered a place. By the railroad against Walden I heard the lisping of a chickadee, and saw it on a sumach. It repeatedly hopped to a bunch of berries, took one, and, hopping to a more horizontal twig, placed it under one foot and hammered at it with its bill. The snow was strewn with the berries under its foot, but I could see no shells of the fruit. Perhaps it clears off the crimson only. Some of the bunches are very large and quite upright there still. Again, I suspect that on meadows the snow is not so deep and has firmer crust. In an ordinary storm the depth of the snow will be affected by a wood twenty or more rods distant, or as far as the wood is a fence. The snow is so light in the swamps under the crust, amid the andromeda, that a cat could almost run there. There are but few tracks of mice, now the snow is so deep. They run underneath. The drift about Lynchís house is like this: -- There is a strong wind this afternoon from northwest, and the snow of the 28th is driving like steam over the fields, drifting into the roads. On the railroad causeway it lies in perfectly straight and regular ridges a few feet apart, northwest and southeast. It is dry and scaly, like coarse bran. Now that there is so much snow, it slopes up to the tops of the walls on both sides. What a difference between life in the city and in the country at present, -- between walking in Washington Street, threading your way between countless sledges and travellers, over the discolored snow, and crossing Walden Pond, a spotless field of snow surrounded by woods, whose intensely blue shadows and your own are the only objects. What a solemn silence reigns here!"

Journal XX (1856-01-04 to 1856-04-23)

plantae
shrub
sumach

PJ10

M1302:26

TVIII