A YEAR IN THE FIELDS 



warmth has penetrated the sod ; there is a 

 stir of preparation about the farm and all 

 through the country. One does not care 

 to see things very closely : his interest in 

 nature is not special but general. The earth 

 is coming to life again. All the genial and 

 more fertile places in the landscape are 

 brought out ; the earth is quickened in spots 

 and streaks ; you can see at a glance where 

 man and nature have dealt the most kindly 

 with it. The warm, moist places, the places 

 that have had the wash of some building or 

 of the road, or have been subjected to some 

 special mellowing influence, how quickly 

 the turf awakens there and shows the tender 

 green ! See what the landscape would be, 

 how much earlier spring would come to it, 

 if every square yard of it was alike moist 

 and fertile. As the later snows lay in 

 patches here and there, so now the earliest 

 verdure is irregularly spread over the land- 

 scape, and is especially marked on certain 

 slopes, as if it had blown over from the other 

 side and lodged there. 



A little earlier the homesteads looked cold 

 and naked ; the old farmhouse was bleak 

 and unattractive ; now Nature seems espe- 

 cially to smile upon it ; her genial influences 

 52 



