The seasons all come to this farm. It is astonishing how far they 

 come to enjoy this view. Birds from far-off woodlands bordering on 

 the gulf come here and nest. I think highly of their taste. They know 

 where to come. Thank goodness there are some creatures which, 

 whatever the lack of the aesthetic on the part of the many, retain a fine 

 Greek taste for the beautiful. The seasons all come here annually. I 

 have never known them to miss. They are as regular as I am, and 

 enjoy this farm with a gusto which is warming to my heart. Sometimes 

 one season comes first, sometimes another. That depends entirely on 

 what season you begin with. I begin with winter. Winter on this 

 estate is a rare season. The land lies brown and beautiful. The many 

 colors of a winter landscape are things not sufficently attended to in 

 popular thinking. People talk as if winter fields were uneventful and 

 monotonous. Nothing is less true. Winter browns are quite as varied as 

 summer greens. My woods stand black in winter, especially when the 

 skies are gray with no hint of sunlight, the trees standing against such a 

 sky look black as stormy water. Nature indulges in no black colors 

 in vegetation save this. And I have seen my woods gloom against a 

 winter evening sky like a rising storm-cloud. They are prodigal in this 

 tempestuous quality. I love to look at it so, and can all but hear the 

 mutter of the thunder which in summer booms intermittently from black 

 thunder heads. And if you walk into the fields, the grasses are of 

 varied hues. Some are light-toned, almost gray, some a deep russet, 

 some species of slough grass are like browns touched with flame full of 

 surprise and delight, and the wheat stubble keeps its old gold all the 

 winter through, and corn stalks have the richness of color which minds 

 the eye of a lion's skin brown as the desert he goes fleetly across ; 

 and golden-rod stands in the hedge-corners grouped in its miniature 

 forests graceful in form as when they lean plumes of gold in autumn 

 noons, but now the plumes are white like those which nod in a knight's 

 helmet. This golden-rod flames out gold in autumn and snow in winter, 

 and whether to love the more its gold or snow I know not. They belong 

 to the two seasons and in either are radiant to my eyes. Weeds are brave 

 winter folk. Flowers die in autumn, and even in the woods the bunches 

 of violet leaves are pressed flat against the earth and have lost their 

 green, or it is almost altogether blotted out, but weeds stand self-reliant 

 nodding to the shivering winds. Winter weeds are prepared foods for 

 the birds. They are their winter pasture fields. God is so thoughtful in 

 leaving for his birds a spread table, standing high above the snow fall 



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