104 A MARCH CHRONICLE. 



In the North how goes the season ? The wintei 

 is perchance just breaking up. The old frost-king i 

 just striking, or preparing to strike, his tents. The 

 ice is going out of the rivers, and the first steamboat 

 on the Hudson is picking its way through the blue 

 lanes and channels. The white gulls are making ex- 

 cursions up from the bay, to see what the prospects 

 are. In the lumber countries, along the upper Ken- 

 nebec and Penobscot, and along the northern Hudson, 

 starters are at work with their pikes and hooks start- 

 ing out the pine logs on the first spring freshet. All 

 winter, through the deep snows, they have been haul 

 ing them to the bank of the stream, or placing them 

 where the tide would reach them. Now, in count- 

 less numbers, beaten and bruised, the trunks of the 

 noble trees come, borne by the angry flood. The 

 snow that furnishes the smooth bed over which they 

 were drawn, now melted, furnishes the power that 

 carries them down to the mills. On the Delaware 

 the raftsmen are at work running out their rafts. 

 Floating islands of logs and lumber go down the 

 swollen stream, bending over the dams, shooting 

 through the rapids, and bringing up at last in Phila- 

 delphia or beyond. 



In the inland farming districts what are the signs ? 

 Few and faint, but very suggestive. The sun has 

 j.ower to melt the snow ; and in the meadows all the 

 knolls are bare, and the sheep are gnawing them in- 

 dustriously. The drifts on the side hills also begin 

 to have a worn and dirty look, and where they cross 



