Page:Rural Hours.djvu/356

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
316
RURAL HOURS.

much lighter tint, while the usual progress with the coloring of the foliage is from light to dark. The Virginia creeper is vivid cherry color, as usual, and its leaves are already dropping; they are always the first to fall. The birches are yellow, more so than usual; the elms also; the lime-trees deep orange. The aspens are quite green still, as well as the Lombardy poplars, and the willows.

They are digging the potatoes; the crop is not a bad one in this neighborhood; some of the Carters, especially, are very fine, large and mealy; and there is generally but little of the decay yet. Some of the farmers expect to lose only a fourth of the crop, others more, some few even less. But the disease often shows itself after the potatoes are in the cellar.

Wednesday, 4th.—Sky soft, but cloudy. How rapid are the changes in the foliage at this season! One can almost see the colors growing brighter. The yellows are more decided, the scarlet and crimson spreading farther, with a pink flush rising on many trees where yellow prevails, especially among the maples. Still there is a clear vein of green perceptible; not the verdure of the pine and hemlock, but the lighter greens of the aspens and beeches, with some oaks and chestnuts not yet touched. Indeed, the woods are very beautiful to-day; the general effect is charming, while here and there we note a scarlet maple, a golden birch, so brilliantly vivid that we are really amazed at the richness and beauty of their coloring.

The children are out nutting; it is the chestnuts which are the chief attraction with them—they are very common here. A merry group of boys and girls were chatting away in the “Chestnut Grove” this afternoon, as we passed. Black walnuts are not