A SPRING RELISH 165 



one day in a springy place, on the top of a high, 

 wooded mountain, far from human habitation. We 

 gathered it and ate it with our sandwiches. Where 

 the walker cannot find this salad, a good substitute 

 may be had in our native spring cress, which is also 

 in perfection in April. Crossing a wooded hill in 

 the regions of the Catskills on the 15th of the 

 month, I found a purple variety of the plant, on 

 the margin of a spring that issued from beneath a 

 ledge of rocks, just ready to bloom. I gathered 

 the little white tubers, that are clustered like mini- 

 ature potatoes at the root, and ate them, and they 

 were a surprise and a challenge to the tongue; on 

 the table they would well fill the place of mustard, 

 and horseradish, and other appetizers. When I 

 was a schoolboy, we used to gather, in a piece of 

 woods on our way to school, the roots of a closely 

 allied species to eat with our lunch. But we gen- 

 erally ate it up before lunch-time. Our name for 

 this plant was "Crinkle-root." The botanists call 

 it the toothwort (Dentaria), also pepper-root. 



From what fact or event shall one really date the 

 beginning of spring? The little piping frogs usu- 

 ally furnish a good starting-point. One spring I 

 heard the first note on the 6th of April; the next 

 on the 27th of February; but in reality the latter 

 season was only about two weeks earlier than the 

 former. When the bees carry in their first pollen, 

 one would think spring had come; yet this fact 

 does not always correspond with the real stage of 

 the season. Before there is any bloom anywhere, 



