THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



HORTICULTURE 



JUNE, 1841. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. On the advance of Spring in the eastern part of 

 Massachusetts. By William Oakes, Esq. 



All nature rejoices in ihe approach of spring, and we see 

 with pecuhar pleasure the well known indications of its ad- 

 vance and progress, the appearance and the singing of birds, 

 the music of the frogs, the spreading green of the grass, and 

 the leafing and flowering of trees and plants. Among all 

 these, the flowering of plants and trees affords the most ob- 

 vious and certain evidences of the progress of the season. 

 Having for many years observed with care the earliest flower- 

 ing of many of the native and cultivated species, I have 

 thought that a careful abstract of the results, with accompany- 

 ing observations, would be interesting to the readers of the 

 Magazine, and especially at the present season, "the coldest 

 and most backward within the memory of man." For want 

 of some fixed standard, we often merely compare the earliness 

 of one season with that of the next preceding, and thus arrive 

 at very uncertain or false conclusions. 



The time of the earliest flowering, in the most favorable 

 situations, affords the only obvious and certain standard of 

 comparison between one season and another. The time when 

 a plant is generally in full flower, or in height of flowering, is 

 very much a matter of opinion, as to which different persons 

 would greatly vary in their estimates, according to their differ- 

 VOL. VII. — NO. VI. 26 



