MARCH. 



49 



that in autumn, if she survive so long, the original 

 queen wasp may be surrounded by twenty thousand 

 of her descendants. That is why man kills her 

 betimes. 



PROMISE OF APPLES AND NUTS. 



March 27. If unwelcome storms should not 

 come later at critical times, it was evidently going 

 to be a good year for apples;* for the hedgerow 

 elms, which were flowering profusely, always seem to 

 obey the same laws as the orchard trees, and in the 

 previous year one foresaw the failure of the apple 

 crop because the papery bloom of the elms had been 

 thin and meagre. With the apples go the nuts also, 

 - seldom ~irr recent ~'y~e"arB "hard'there bee~stjeh a 



wonderful display of dangling catkins on the hazels. 

 Within an inch or two of thtese swinging clusters of 

 yellow tassels, a little higher W a little lower on the 

 same twig, you will always find a stout bud with a 



number of ruby-red points p 



These are the pistils of the fepiale flower waiting for 



the pollen from the wind-swu 

 them ; and so many of them 

 and meet with no accident 



nuts. A gentle breath of wiAd rippling the myriad 



plumes of a nut avenue on a: 

 adds bushels of nuts to Octob 



* It was uncommonly g< 



otruding from the tip. 



g catkins to fall upon 

 as are thus fertilized, 

 hereafter, will produce 



y sunny day in March 

 r's store. 



od in Norfolk. 



