DEVOTED TO AGKICUIiTtmE, HORTICULTUEE, AND KTWDRED ABTS. 



NEW SERIES. 



Boston, May, 18G7. 



VOL. I.— NO. 5. 



R. P. EATON & CO., Publishers, 

 Office, 34 Merchants' llow. 



MONTHLY. 



SIMON BRO^VN, I Editors 

 8. FLETCHER, ( J^-ditors. 



MAY, 1867. 



Warm -with new life, the glittering throngs, 

 On quivering fire and rustling wing. 



Delighted join their votive songs. 

 And hail thee Goddess of the Spring. 



Darwin. 



Contrast be- 

 tween the cus- 

 toms of our own 

 time and some of 

 those which have 

 existed among 

 people who had 

 their period upon 

 ^s earth long ago, 

 and then passed 

 away, is some- 

 times exceeding- 

 ly interesting. 



Some of the 

 customs which 

 were always ob- 

 served by our English ancestry 

 on the first of May, and -which 

 seem to have been rooted in the 

 very hearts of the people, have come down to 

 us ; but transplanted into a more rigid climate, 

 they have become chilled, and have lost much 

 of that freshness and vitality which they ex- 

 hibited through so many ages in their own sea- 

 girt isle. 



There, it was anciently the custom for all 

 ranks of people to go out a Maying early on 



the first of May. Bourne tells us that, in his 

 time, "In the villages in the North of Eng- 

 land, the juvenile part of both sexes were 

 wont to rise a little after midnight on the 

 morning of that day, and walk to some neigh- 

 boring wood, accompanied with music and the 

 blowing of horns, where they broke down 

 branches from the trees, and adorned them 

 with nosegays and crowns of flowers. This 

 done, they returned homeward with their 

 booty, about the time of sunrise, and made 

 their doors and windows triumph in the flow- 

 ery spoil.'" 



This is, every season, attempted here ; but 

 under what different j^spectsand circumstances ! 

 The girls with blue lips instead of red, with 

 woolen hoods upon their heads, and hands en- 

 cased in fur gloves ; and the boys with thick 

 boots, mittens and overcoats ! The ruts are 

 deep and somewhat frozen ; patches of snow 

 lie in the woods, and, although the sun shines, 

 its warmest beams are neutralized by the 

 northwest winds which come sweeping over 

 the hills. Their music is the "blowing" of 

 certain nasal projections, the dim notes of a 

 shivering blue-bird, or the doleful wail of an 

 old field lark, complaining that she had come 

 north altogether too soon ! 



As to flowers, they are "like angels' visits, 

 few and far between." Miles of hill and dale 

 are searched before the effort is rewarded by 

 anything that "blows," except the wind. The 

 sight of an "Early Crowfoof and a bunch of 



