A YEAR IN THE FIELDS 



To-day, October 2ist, I found the air in 

 the bushy fields and lanes under the woods 

 loaded with the perfume of the witch-hazel, 

 a sweetish, sickening odor. With the 

 blooming of this bush, Nature says, " Posi- 

 tively the last." It is a kind of birth in 

 death, of spring in fall, that impresses one 

 as a little uncanny. All trees and shrubs 

 form their flower-buds in the fall, and keep 

 the secret till spring. How comes the 

 witch-hazel to be the one exception, and to 

 celebrate its floral nuptials on the funeral 

 day of its foliage ? No doubt it will be 

 found that the spirit of some lovelorn squaw 

 has passed into this bush, and that this is 

 why it blooms in the Indian summer rather 

 than in the white man's spring. 



But it makes the floral series of the woods 

 complete. Between it and the shad-blow of 

 earliest spring lies the mountain of bloom ; 

 the latter at the base on one side, this at the 

 base on the other, with the chestnut blos- 

 soms at the top in midsummer. 



A peculiar feature of our fall may some- 

 times be seen of a clear afternoon late in 

 the season. Looking athwart the fields 

 under the sinking sun, the ground appears 

 covered with a shining veil of gossamer. A 

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