to escape until the snow falls and shields them, preserving them through the winter in a sort of half evergreen state, like some other garden and field plants. This year there are more of these fern leaves than usual, and they are pleasing, though flattened to the ground by the snow which has been weighing them down.
Nothing like a flower in all the wide woods. But the ground laurel is in bud and will blossom before long; we raked up the dead leaves to look for it, and some of the buds are very large and promising.
The robins, and sparrows, and bluebirds were singing very sweetly as we came home toward evening; there are many more now in the village than in the woods. The wheat is looking green; the other fields are still brown. Every day the lake grows more dull and gloomy.
Tuesday, 4th.—The frogs were heard last night for the first time this season.
Wednesday, 5th.—First seed sown in the garden to-day; peas, beets, onions, &c., &c.
Friday, 6th.—Bright sun, but cool air, which keeps back the swelling buds; and if these come out too soon they are in great danger of being injured by frost. The ice is still in the lake, and knowing ones say we never have warm weather until the waters are open. There is no current in our lake, or so little at least, it is scarcely perceptible; not enough to carry the ice off, and it melts slowly away. Heavy rains are a great help in getting rid of it, and after an opening is once made in the weak crust, a high wind will work upon it like magic, dashing it into fragments, and piling it on the shores, when it vanishes in a very short time. We have known the lake well covered, and men
