io4 



A MARCH CHRONICLE, 



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 excursions up 

 from the bay, to see what the prospects are. In the 

 lumber countries, along the upper Kennebec and Pe- 

 nobscot, and along the northern Hudson, starters are at 

 work with their pikes and hooks starting out the pine 

 logs on the first spring freshet. All winter, through 

 the deep snows, they have been hauling them to the 

 bank of the stream, or placing them where the tide 

 would reach them. Now, in countless numbers, beaten 

 and bruised, the trunks of the noble trees come, borne 

 by the angry floods. The snow that furnished 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 run- 

 ning out their rafts. Floating islands of logs and lum- 

 ber go' down the swollen stream, bending over the 

 .dams, shooting through the rapids, and bringing up at 

 last in Philadelphia or beyond. 



In the inland farming districts what are the signs? 

 Few and faint, but very suggestive. The sun has 

 power 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 the 

 highway, to become soft, letting the teams in up to 

 their bellies. The oxen labor and grunt, or patiently 



