March 1.--The first day of spring and the first spring day! I felt the
change the moment I put my head out of doors in the morning. A fitful,
gusty south wind was blowing, though the sky was clear. But the
sunlight was not the same. There was an interfusion of a new element.
Not ten days before there had been a day just as bright,--even brighter
and warmer,--a clear, crystalline day of February, with nothing vernal
in it; but this day was opaline; there was a film, a sentiment in it, a
nearer approach to life. Then there was that fresh, indescribable odor,
a breath from the Gulf, or from Florida and the Carolinas,--a subtle,
persuasive influence that thrilled the sense. Every root and rootlet
under ground must have felt it; the buds of the soft maple and silver
poplar felt it, and swelled perceptibly during the day. The robins knew
it, and were here that morning; so were the crow blackbirds. The shad
must have known it, down deep in their marine retreats, and leaped and
sported about the mouths of the rivers, ready to dart up them if the
genial influence continued. The bees in the hive also, or in the old
tree in the woods, no doubt awoke to new life; and the hibernating
animals, the bears and woodchucks, rolled up in their subterranean
dens,--I imagine the warmth reached even them, and quickened their
sluggish circulation.
Then in the afternoon there was the smell of smoke,--the first spring
fires in the open air. The Virginia farmer is raking together the
rubbish in his garden, or in the field he is preparing for the plow,
and burning it up. In imagination I am there to help him. I see the
children playing about, delighted with the sport and the resumption of
work; the smoke goes up through the shining haze; the farmhouse door
stands open, and lets in the afternoon sun; the cow lows for her calf,
or hides it in the woods; and in the morning the geese, sporting in the
spring-sun, answer the call of the wild flock steering northward above
them.
As I stroll through the market I see the signs here. That old colored
woman has brought spring in her basket in those great green flakes of
moss, with arbutus showing the pink; and her old man is just in good
time with his fruit trees and gooseberry bushes. Various bulbs and
roots are also being brought out and offered, and the onions are
sprouting on the stands. I see bunches of robins and cedar-birds
also,--so much melody and beauty cut off from the supply going north.
The fish-market is beginning to be bright with perch and bass, and with
shad from the Southern rivers, and wild ducks are taking the place of
prairie hens and quails.
In the Carolinas, no doubt, the fruit trees are in bloom, and the rice
land is being prepared for the seed. In the mountains of Virginia and
in Ohio they are making maple sugar; in Kentucky and Tennessee they are
sowing oats; in Illinois they are, perchance, husking the corn which
has remained on the stalk in the field all winter. Wild geese and ducks
are streaming across the sky from the lower Mississippi toward the
great lakes, pausing awhile on the prairies, or alighting in the great
cornfields, making the air resound with the noise of their wings upon
the stalks and dry shucks as they resume their journey. About this
time, or a little later, in the still spring morning, the prairie hens
or prairie cocks set up that low, musical cooing or crowing that defies
the ear to trace or locate. The air is filled with that soft,
mysterious undertone; and, save that a bird is seen here and there
flitting low over the ground, the sportsman walks for hours without
coming any nearer the source of the elusivc sound.
All over a certain belt of the country the rivers and streams are
roily, and chafe their banks. There is a movement of the soils. The
capacity of the water to take up and hold in solution the salt and
earths seemed never so great before. The frost has relinquished its
hold, and turned everything over to the water. Mud is the mother now;
and out of it creep the frogs, the turtles, the crawfish.
In the North how goes the season? The winter is perchance just
breaking up. The old frost king is just striking, or preparing to
strike, his tents. The ice is going out of the rivers, and the first
steamboat on the Hudson is picking its way through the blue lanes and
channels. The white gulls are making excursions up from the bay, to see
what the prospects are. In the lumber countries, along the upper
Kennebec and Penobscot, and along the northern Hudson, starters are at
work with their pikes and hooks starting out the pine logs on the first
spring freshet. All winter, through the deep snows, they have been
hauling them to the bank of the stream, or placing them where the tide
would reach them. Now, in countless, numbers, beaten and bruised, the
trunks of the noble trees come, borne by the angry flood. The snow that
furnishes the smooth bed over which they were drawn, now melted,
furnishes the power that carries them down to the mills. On the
Delaware the raftsmen are at work running out their rafts. Floating
islands of logs and lumber go down the swollen stream, bending over the
dams, shooting through the rapids, and bringing up at last in
Philadelphia or beyond.
In the inland farming districts what are the signs? Few and faint, but
very suggestive. The sun has power to melt the snow; and in the meadows
all the knolls are bare, and the sheep are gnawing them industriously.
The drifts on the side-hills also begin to have a worn and dirty look,
and, where they cross the highway, to become soft, letting the teams in
up to their bellies. The oxen labor and grunt, or patiently wait for
the shovel to release them; but the spirited horse leaps and flounders,
and is determined not to give up. In the woods the snow is melted
around the trees, and the burrs and pieces of bark have absorbed the
heat till they have sunk halfway through to the ground. The snow is
melting on the under side; the frost is going out of the ground: now
comes the trial of your foundations.
About the farm buildings there awakens the old familiar chorus, the
bleating of calves and lambs, and the answering bass of their
distressed mothers; while the hens are cackling in the hay-loft, and
the geese are noisy in the spring run. But the most delightful of all
farm work, or of all rural occupations, is at hand, namely,
sugar-making. In New York and northern New England the beginning of
this season varies from the first to the middle of March, sometimes
even holding off till April. The moment the contest between the sun and
frost fairly begins, sugar weather begins; and the more even the
contest, the more the sweet. I do not know what the philosophy of it
is, but it seems a kind of see-saw, as if the sun drew the sap up and
the frost drew it down; and an excess of either stops the flow. Before
the sun has got power to unlock the frost, there is no sap; and after
the frost has lost its power to lock up again the work of the sun,
there is no sap. But when it freezes soundly at night, with a bright,
warm sun next day, wind in the west, and no signs of a storm, the veins
of the maples fairly thrill. Pierce the bark anywhere, and out gushes
the clear, sweet liquid. But let the wind change to the south and blow
moist and warm, destroying that crispness of the air, and the flow
slackens at once, unless there be a deep snow in the woods to
counteract or neutralize the warmth, in which case the run may continue
till the rain sets in. The rough-coated old trees,--one would not think
they could scent a change so quickly through that wrapper of dead, dry
bark an inch or more thick. I have to wait till I put my head out of
doors, and feel the air on my bare cheek, and sniff it with my nose;
but their nerves of taste and smell are no doubt under ground, imbedded
in the moisture, and if there is anything that responds quickly to
atmospheric changes, it is water. Do not the fish, think you, down deep
in the streams, feel every wind that blows, whether it be hot or cold?
Do not the frogs and newts and turtles under the mud feel the warmth,
though the water still seems like ice? As the springs begin to rise in
advance of the rain, so the intelligence of every change seems to
travel ahead under ground and forewarn things.
A "sap-run" seldom lasts more than two or three days. By that time
there is a change in the weather, perhaps a rainstorm, which takes the
frost nearly all out of the ground. Then, before there can be another
run, the trees must be wound up again, the storm must have a white
tail, and "come off" cold. Presently the sun rises clear again, and
cuts the snow or softens the hard-frozen ground with his beams, and the
trees take a fresh start. The boys go through the wood, emptying out
the buckets or the pans, and reclaiming those that have blown away, and
the delightful work is resumed. But the first run, like first love, is
always the best, always the fullest, always the sweetest; while there
is a purity and delicacy of flavor about the sugar that far surpasses
any subsequent yield.
Trees differ much in the quantity as well as in the quality of sap
produced in a given season. Indeed, in a bush or orchard of fifty or
one hundred trees, as wide a difference may be observed in this respect
as among that number of cows in regard to the milk they yield. I have
in my mind now a "sugar-bush" nestled in the lap of a spur of the
Catskills, every tree of which is known to me, and assumes a distinct
individuality in my thought. I know the look and quality of the whole
two hundred; and when on my annual visit to the old homestead I find
one has perished, or fallen before the axe, I feel a personal loss.
They are all veterans, and have yielded up their life's blood for the
profit of two or three generations. They stand in little groups for
couples. One stands at the head of a spring-run, and lifts a large dry
branch high above the woods, where hawks and crows love to alight. Half
a dozen are climbing a little hill; while others stand far out in the
field, as if they had come out to get the sun. A file of five or six
worthies sentry the woods on the northwest, and confront a steep
side-hill where sheep and cattle graze. An equal number crowd up to the
line on the east; and their gray, stately trunks are seen across
meadows or fields of grain. Then there is a pair of Siamese twins, with
heavy, bushy tops; while in the forks of a wood-road stand the two
brothers, with their arms around each other's neck, and their bodies in
gentle contact for a distance of thirty feet.
One immense maple, known as the "old-creampan-tree," stands, or did
stand, quite alone among a thick growth of birches and beeches. But it
kept its end up, and did the work of two or three ordinary trees, as
its name denotes. Next to it, the best milcher in the lot was a
shaggy-barked tree in the edge of the field, that must have been badly
crushed or broken when it was little, for it had an ugly crook near the
ground, and seemed to struggle all the way up to get in an upright
attitude, but never quite succeeded; yet it could outrun all its
neighbors nevertheless. The poorest tree in the lot was a shortbodied,
heavy-topped tree that stood in the edge of a spring-run. It seldom
produced half a gallon of sap during the whole season; but this half
gallon was very sweet,--three or four times as sweet as the ordinary
article. In the production of sap, top seems far less important than
body. It is not length of limb that wins in this race, but length of
trunk. A heavy, bushy-topped tree in the open field, for instance, will
not, according to my observation, compare with a tall, long-trunked
tree in the woods, that has but a small top. Young, thrifty,
thin-skinned trees start up with great spirit, indeed, fairly on a run;
but they do not hold out, and their blood is very diluted. Cattle are
very fond of sap; so are sheep, and will drink enough to kill them. The
honey-bees get here their first sweet, and the earliest bug takes up
his permanent abode on the "spile." The squirrels also come timidly
down the trees, and sip the sweet flow; and occasionally an ugly
lizard, just out of its winter quarters and in quest Of novelties,
creeps up into the pan or bucket. Soft maple makes a very fine white
sugar, superior in quality, but far less in quantity.
I think any person who has tried it will agree with me about the charm
of sugar-making, though he have no tooth for the sweet itself. It is
enough that it is the first spring work, and takes one to the woods.
The robins are just arriving, and their merry calls ring through the
glades. The squirrels are now venturing out, and the woodpeckers and
nuthatches run briskly up the trees. The crow begins to caw, with his
accustomed heartiness and assurance; and one sees the white rump and
golden shafts of the high-hole as he flits about the open woods. Next
week, or the week after, it may be time to begin plowing, and other
sober work about the farm; but this week we will picnic among the
maples, and our camp-fire shall be an incense to spring. Ah, I am there
now! I see the woods flooded with sunlight; I smell the dry leaves, and
the mould under them just quickened by the warmth; the long-trunked
maples in their gray, rough liveries stand thickly about; I see the
brimming pans and buckets, always on the sunny side of the trees, and
hear the musical dropping of the sap; the "boiling-place," with its
delightful camp features, is just beyond the first line, with its great
arch looking to the southwest. The sound of its axe rings through the
woods. Its huge kettles or broad pans boil and foam; and I ask no other
delight than to watch and tend them all day, to dip the sap from the
great casks into them, and to replenish the fire with the newly-cut
birch and beech wood. A slight breeze is blowing from the west; I catch
the glint here and there in the afternoon sun of the little rills and
creeks coursing down the sides of the hills; the awakening sounds about
the farm and the woods reach my ear; and every rustle or movement of
the air or on the earth seems like a pulse of returning life in nature.
I sympathize with that verdant Hibernian who liked sugar-making so well
that he thought he should follow it the whole year. I should at least
be tempted to follow the season up the mountains, camping this week on
one terrace, next week on one farther up, keeping just on the hem of
Winter's garment, and just in advance of the swelling buds, until my
smoke went up through the last growth of maple that surrounds the
summit.
Maple sugar is peculiarly an American product, the discovery of it
dating back into the early history of New England. The first settlers
usually caught the sap in rude troughs, and boiled it down in kettles
slung to a pole by a chain, the fire being built around them. The first
step in the way of improvement was to use tin pans instead of troughs,
and a large stone arch in which the kettles or caldrons were set with
the fire beneath them. But of late years, as the question of fuel has
become a more important one, greater improvements have been made. The
arch has given place to an immense stove designed for that special
purpose; and the kettles to broad, shallow, sheet-iron pans, the object
being to economize all the heat, and to obtain the greatest possible
extent of evaporating surface.
March 15.--From the first to the middle of March the season made steady
progress. There were no checks, no drawbacks. Warm, copious rains from
the south and southwest, followed by days of unbroken sunshine. In the
moist places--and what places are not moist at this season?--the sod
buzzed like a hive. The absorption and filtration among the network of
roots was an audible process.
The clod fairly sang. How the trees responded also! The silver
poplars were masses of soft gray bloom, and the willows down toward the
river seemed to have slipped off their old bark and on their new in a
single night. The soft maples, too, when massed in the distance, their
tops deeply dyed in a bright maroon color,--how fair they looked!
The 15th of the month was "one of those charmed days when the genius of
God doth flow." The wind died away by mid-forenoon, and the day settled
down so softly and lovingly upon the earth, touching everything,
filling everything. The sky visibly came down. You could see it among
the trees and between the hills. The sun poured himself into the earth
as into a cup, and the atmosphere fairly swam with warmth and light. In
the afternoon I walked out over the country roads north of the city.
Innumerable columns of smoke were going up all around the horizon from
burning brush and weeds, fields being purified by fire. The farmers
were hauling out manure; and I am free to confess, the odor of it, with
its associations of the farm and the stable, of cattle and horses, was
good in my nostrils. In the woods the liverleaf and arbutus had just
opened doubtingly; and in the little pools great masses of frogs'
spawn, with a milky tinge, were deposited. The youth who accompanied me
brought some of it home in his handkerchief, to see it hatch in a
goblet.
The month came in like a lamb, and went out like a lamb, setting at
naught the old adage. The white fleecy clouds lay here and there, as if
at rest, on the blue sky. The fields were a perfect emerald; and the
lawns, with the new gold of the first dandelions sprinkled about, were
lush with grass. In the parks and groves there was a faint mist of
foliage, except among the willows, where there was not only a mist, but
a perfect fountain-fall of green. In the distance the river looked
blue; the spring freshets at last over, the ground settled, the jocund
season steps forth into April with a bright and confident look.