In New England Fields and Woods

assertion, "Now spring begins;" but in the northern part of New England, for which

rcely a sign of spring in the nakedness of pasture, meadow, and ploughed land, now more dreary in the dun desolation of

ades all outdoors. We could never believe that so many odds and ends could have been thrown out of doors helter-skelter, in three months of ordinary life, till the proof confronts us on the surface of the subsiding snow or lies stranded on the

ar-maker's camp, with its mixed odors of pungent smoke and saccharine steam, its wide environment of dripping spouts a

steads. When this three months' downfall of fragments sinks to the carpet of flattened leaves, it will be at one with it, an inwoven pattern, as comely as the shifting mesh of browner shadows that trunks and branches weave between the splashes of sunshine. Among these is a garnishment of green

obbing again in slow and accelerated pulsations of evasive sound through the unroofed arches of the woodlands. And one may hear, wondering where the poor vagrants find food and water, the wild clangor of

at of the winter that is past. The damp flakes cling to every surface, and clothe wall, fence and tree, f

a few meagre signs, and the tradition

ut a season with an individuality as