A SPRING RELISH. 189 



these fragrant hepaticas, writes me that this gift of 

 odor is constant in the same plant; that the plant 

 which bears sweet-scented flowers this year will bear 

 them next. 



There is a brief period in our spring when I like 

 more than at any other time to drive along the country 

 roads, or even to be shot along by steam and have 

 the landscape presented to me like a map. It is at 

 that period, usually late in April, when we behold the 

 first quickening of the earth. The waters have sub- 

 sided, the roads have become dry, the sunshine has 

 grown strong and its warmth has penetrated the sod ; 

 there is a stir of preparation about the farm and all 

 through the country. One does not care to see things 

 very closely ; his interest in nature is not special but 

 general. The earth is coming to life again. All the 

 genial and more fertile places in the landscape are 

 brought out ; the earth is quickened in spots and 

 streaks ; you can see at a glance where man and 

 nature have dealt the most kindly with it. The 

 warm, moist places, the places that have had the 

 wash of some building or of the road, or been sub- 

 jected to some special mellowing influence, how quickly 

 the turf awakens there and shows the tender green ! 

 See what the landscape would be, how much earlier 

 spring would come to it, if every square yard of it 

 was alike moist and fertile. As the later snows lay 

 in patches here and there, so now the earliest verdure 

 is irregularly spread over the landscape and is es- 

 pecially marked on certain slopes, as if it had blown 

 over from the other side and lodged there. 



