190 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



A fall of snow, and this icy uproar is instantly 

 hushed, the river sleeps in peace. The snow is 

 like a coverlid, which protects the ice from the 

 changes of temperature of the air, and brings repose 

 to its uneasy spirit. 



A dweller upon its banks, I am an interested 

 spectator of the spring and winter harvests which 

 its waters yield. In the stern winter nights, it is 

 a pleasant thought that a harvest is growing down 

 there on those desolate plains which will bring work 

 to many needy hands by and by, and health and 

 comfort to the great cities some months later. 

 When the nights are coldest, the ice grows as fast 

 as corn in July. It is a crop that usually takes 

 two or three weeks to grow, and, if the water is very 

 roily or brackish, even longer. Men go out from 

 time to time and examine it, as the farmer goes out 

 and examines his grain or grass, to see when it will 

 do to cut. If there comes a deep fall of snow 

 before the ice has attained much thickness, it is 

 "pricked," so as to let the water up through and 

 form snow-ice. A band of fifteen or twenty men, 

 about a yard apart, each armed with a chisel-bar 

 and marching in line, puncture the ice at each step 

 with a single sharp thrust. To and fro they go, 

 leaving a belt behind them that presently becomes 

 saturated with water. But ice, to be first quality, 

 must grow from beneath, not from above. It is a 

 crop quite as uncertain as any other. A good yield 

 every two or three years, as they say of wheat out 

 West, is about all that can be counted upon. When 



