Wild Fruits: Editor's Notes, Second of Three Sections

        119  single cyme presents:: Thoreau interlined in the MS here, "August 8, 1852. Greenish white."
        120  one evening: Thoreau’s journal source for this passage is his entry of 31 August 1856 (Journal 9:49).
        120  one afternoon: Thoreau’s journal source for this passage is his entry of August 19, 1854 (Journal 6:456-57).
        120  Perth Amboy … neighboring school: Thoreau visited the Eagleswood Community, located one mile west of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, from October 25 to November 25, 1856. While there he surveyed the property for the owner, wealthy Quaker abolitionist Marcus Springs, and read three lectures to the communitarians who lived in a large phalanstery on the property (Harding, pp. 370-76; Dean and Hoag, pp. 273-79).
        120  (Viburnum prunifolium): Thoreau queried this name in the MS. Gray (1848), p. 174, uses both the English and the Latin names, so Thoreau apparently queried his identification of the plant rather than one or another of the names.
        120  called "Nanny berries" about New York: The original version of this paragraph ends with "ornaments." Thoreau later added in ink the note "(Vide perhaps Torrey, July 20, 1857)," referring to his reading about "Nanny berries" in Torrey, 2:87, during a visit on July 20, 1857, to the Natural History Library in Boston (Journal 9:484-85).
        120  thickets of it: Thoreau originally wrote this sentence without "in this region," which he later interlined in ink. In that original version Thoreau ended the sentence with "there," but when he added "in this region" he did not delete "there," which I delete as redundant.
        120  swampy sproutlands— and: After "sproutlands" Thoreau wrote "(as at Shadbush Meadow)" and intelined "and by path in Hubbard’s rear wood." I emend by adding the word "and."
        120  September 3. Now is … asters in their turn: Thoreau drew a pencil line in the margin beside this paragraph and penned along the line, "Beautiful Berrying."
        121  you, as you wind: Thoreau originally wrote "pass" and then wrote "wind" above "pass" without deleting "pass."
        121  them with each other: After this phrase in the MS Thoreau wrote, "September 4, 1853 rather stale."
        121  about August twelfth: After these words in the MS Thoreau wrote, "(July 26, 1860 not yet ripe but reddish)."
        121  last through September: At the end of this sentence in the MS Thoreau wrote, "(many in 1859—very few in 1860)."
        121  robins and cherry-birds: Beginning with "cherry-birds" there is a single pencil line through the remainder of this paragraph, which Thoreau may have used to indicate deletion of that material.
        121  Loudon says … when ripe, as fruit": Loudon, 2:917.
        122  August second: Thoreau first wrote "August 8" in the MS, but then he pencilled in a "2" and did not delete the "8."
        122  are eaten by birds: At the end of this sentence Thoreau wrote, "(before they are fairly ripe)."
        123  Silky cornel with … and fill its crevices: In the MS this sentence reads, "(Hazel-nut husks fully formed—richly, autumnally significant—viburnum dentatum, elder, and) silky cornel—(all) with abundance of green berries help clothe the bank of the Assabet and fill its crevices." Thoreau placed in parentheses the material he apparently intended to delete.
        123  dangling over the … reflected in it: Thoreau put an open parenthesis before the word "dangling," which suggests he may have considered deleting the remainder of the sentence.
        123  nearly blue green: After "nearly" in the MS Thoreau wrote, "(pearly? amethystine?)."
        123  kinnikinnik of the Indians: As the next note makes clear, Thoreau read about kinnikinnik, which he occasionally spells "kinnikinnic," in Hind, Northwest Territory, p. 47. Almost all the other early French voyageurs Thoreau read or read about also mention kinnikinnik, its ingredients, how it is made, and so on.
        123  Hind writes … tobacco was exhausted: After "Fairly begin to be ripe" in the MS Thoreau wrote, "Vide Common Place Book no. 2, p. 191 for account of kinnikinnic," a reference to the passage from Hind, Northwest Territory, p. 47, that I incorporate into the text here from pp. 193-94 of Thoreau’s "Common Place Book 2," not from "p. 191." I emend by adding "Hind writes about the" to the introductory clause and by omitting "[sic]" after "smoke bark."
        124  The smooth sumac … about August thirteenth: At the top of the MS page that begins with this passage, Thoreau wrote two notes in pencil. The first note, "Vide last page," refers to the paragraph about Kalm’s Travels, which I place at the end of this section in the text. The other note, "put this August 13," is Thoreau’s instruction to move this section from where he had earlier placed it, at "the nineteenth of July" in the chronological structure, to its present location. Based on Thoreau’s instructional note, I emend by supplanting "the nineteenth of July" in the MS with "August thirteenth." At the end of the sentence in the MS, Thoreau wrote, "say after August 13th" and "July 26, 1860 still in bloom, far from fruit" and "August 17, 1860 now fairly handsome but not long."
        124  crimson or vermillion?: After these words in the MS Thoreau wrote, "September 24, 1859, probably past beauty."
        124  and probably mice: After this sentence in the MS Thoreau wrote, "found some on the snow."
        124  plenty still in April: Between "plenty" and "still" in the MS Thoreau interlined "and red still April 22, 1856" in pencil.
        124  Loudon, apparently … that same color": Loudon, 2:552. Earlier in the "Rhus glabra" section of his book, Loudon paraphrases Kalm by beginning a sentence, "According to Kalm" (2:551). After an intervening sentence, Loudon has a long quotation that, within the context of the section and particularly given his earlier paraphrase of Kalm, appears to be a quotation from Kalm. This long quotation—and particularly the last sentence of that quotation, which is what Thoreau quotes here ("The berries are eaten … that same color.")—is what Thoreau refers to when he writes, "Loudon, apparently quoting Kalm." Curiously, though, at the end of the long quotation Loudon cites his source not as Kalm but as "(Martyn’s Miller)," which Loudon expands in his "List of Books Referred To" section (1:ccx) as Professor Martyn’s four-volume "improved edition" (London, 1807) of Philip Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary; or, a Complete System of Horticulture, 3 vols. (London, 1759). So the quotation Thoreau uses here is not actually from Kalm via Loudon—a conclusion Thoreau himself may have arrived at because of the similarities between the "Martyn’s Miller" quotation from Loudon and the actual Kalm quotation that Thoreau uses later in this "Smooth Sumac" section, for which see the note to p. 125 below.
        125  Professor Rogers … economy and medicine: Thoreau’s source is Loudon, 2:552; Loudon cites the source as "Silliman’s Journal, vol. xxvii, p. 294."
        125  creamy incrustation: After "creamy" Thoreau wrote, "(for consistence)."
        125  From Kalm’s … they are very sour": Travels into North America, 1:75, part of which Thoreau just quoted from Loudon (see p. 124). I emend by adding the word "From" to the introductory phrase and by moving the entire introductory phrase from the end to the beginning of the quotation.
        125  depressed, globular, and scarlet: After these words in the MS Thoreau wrote, "(Is not the other?)."
        126  Manasseh Cutler … London dispensatory": Cutler, p. 451.
        126  December 14, 1850 … thick as winterberries: At the end of this sentence in the MS here Thoreau wrote, "Vide Miscellaneous p. 5 (late rose?)," referring to p. 5 of his 112-page "Miscellaneous" draft (Berg Collection, "Notes on Fruits" folder, accession number 334), which is the source of paragraph that follows in the text ("December 14, 1850 … thick as winterberries"). Note that Thoreau uses this same passage in his section on "Late Rose" (see p. 194 and the note below to p. 194), a duplication that reflects Thoreau’s difficulty distinguishing, in this case at least, between the early and late roses.
        126  Loudon quotes Pliny … well boiled or baked": Loudon, 2:882.
        126  Gerarde says …mention the poorer ones: Gerarde, p. 1455.
        126  September 9, 1853 … good there, in prime: Thoreau wrote these two paragraphs in the margin of the MS and did not indicate an insertion point. I place them at this location somewhat arbitrarily. In the MS Thoreau began the second paragraph "September 22, 1854," which I emend to "September 23, 1854," for that is the entry where he actually recorded the second observation in his journal (Journal, 7:52, where he writes, "I gather pretty good wild pears near the new road—now in prime").
        126  Sophia: Thoreau’s younger sister.
        127  Ralph Waldo Emerson’s: I expand from "R.W.E.’s" in the MS.
        127  darker-green rust: Thoreau wrote after this phrase in the MS, "(or fungi?).".
        127  plum weight … "pear" of the weigher: The weight of the carpenter and mason is actually a "plumb," which is derived from the Latin word for lead, plumbum. "Pear" in French is "poire," and Thoreau mentions later in the "Asclepias Cornuti" section on p. 196 a "steel-yard poire," a pear-shaped object of some kind. The Oxford English Dictionary does not list "poire," nor does it list a definition for pear suggesting that the word was ever used to denote a weigher's weight.  Thoreau's apparent confusion may have resulted from his having read "The Weight and Culture of Dwarf Pears" (see "Works Cited"), which contains the following passage loosely associating steelyards and pears: "It has often been asserted, and as frequently denied, that dwarf pears weighing above three-quarters of a pound are commonly raised. The Worcester (Mass.) Horticultural Society have settled the question by the aid of steelyards. They took the fairest specimens of several varieties shown at the Fairs of 1859 and 1860, and found a marked difference in their weight in the two years."  I italicize the word on the presumption that it is, in fact, a foreign word.
        127  glout-morceaux: The Oxford English Dictionary states that the French translates literally to "tit-bit" and quotes Robert Thompson, Gardener’s Assistant (1859), p. 483, "Glou-Morceau [sic] … a dessert pear of the finest excellence." In an article titled "Fruits, Nuts, and Wine," Marshall P. Wilder of Boston lists the "Glout Morceau" under the subheading "Pears, For Cultivation on Quince Stocks" (in Report of the Commissioner, p. 230).
        128  The Romans are said … it came to Britain: Loudon, 2:681. After this sentence in the MS Thoreau interlined the note, "Vide somewhere my account of their coming to Lincoln," but I have not been able to locate any such account, in MS or otherwise.
        128  the Smiths: Likely C. Smith, who lived on the Cambridge Turnpike in Lincoln, just north of Flint’s Pond, as well as his relations.
        128  Evelyn says …before Pliny’s time": Evelyn, p. 119. Galen of Pergamum (129-216 A.D.) was a Greek physician, writer, and philosopher. Pliny the Elder lived from 23 to 79 A.D.
        128  Lincoln in New England: The town of Lincoln, Massachusetts, abuts the town of Concord on the south. In fact, a small portion of Walden Pond’s southeastern shoreline is in Lincoln. According to a report delivered to the Legislative Agricultural Society by Massachusetts State Representative and Concord resident Simon Brown, "before ‘the yellows’ destroyed the peach crop [in Middlesex County], the town of Lincoln alone realized from $8,000 to $9,000 from this crop" (quoted in The New England Farmer, March 1861, p. 120).
        128  In Lawson’s Carolina … wilderness of peach trees": Lawson, p. 115.
        129  in Beverly’s Virginia … purposely for their hogs": Beverly, The History and Present State of Virginia, ed. Louis B. Wright (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947), p. 315. Thoreau’s source was Robert Beverly, The History of Virginia, in Four Parts… (London: F. Fayram and J. Clarke, and T. Bickerton, 1722).
        129  I see the carrion … say September fourth: I emend by deleting "The Carrion flower" at the beginning of this sentence as redundant with "it" in the sentence itself, which I here changed to "the carrion flower." I also emend by changing Thoreau’s original "August 15" to "August seventeenth" based both on this MS page’s location in the chronological structure of Wild Fruits and on Thoreau’s having noted after the orginal date "(1854, say then 17th)."
        129  and on moist banks: Thoreau wrote after these words in the MS, "(as by Violet Wood-Sorrel Wall)."
        129  cone-shaped mass: Thoreau interlined in ink "conical or ovate" above "cone-shaped" without indicating which word or phrase should supplant the other.
        130  leaves, and it is: I add the word "is."
        131  by some creatures: Thoreau wrote "(apparently birds?) in the MS here, the parentheses apparently indicating deletion.
        131  one year: Thoreau’s journal entry of September 21, 1859 indicates that the year was 1859 (Journal, 12:339).
        131  August nineteenth: Thoreau wrote above the line ending here in the MS, "September 21, 1860 some time."
        131  generally till September: I keep this sentence before the following paragraph, which Thoreau had written in ink vertically in the left margin and had careted for insertion, apparently, before this sentence. My assumption in doing so is that his caret was hastily placed before this "dating" sentence, which in virtually every other instance immediately follows the section-plant name.
        131  Cornutus evidently … called ivy today: Cornut, p. 387.
        132  hills in sproutlands: After this phrase in the MS Thoreau wrote, "(as at Lee’s Cliff, and in the Sproutland east, red huckleberry, and E. Hubbard hill-side)."
        132  green even in November: Thoreau wrote "(as 2d, 1853)" after this sentence in the MS.
        133  of the largest plants: I add the word "of." Thoreau initially wrote, "half-dozen plants" and later interlined "the largest."
        133  one tells me: Thoreau identifies this person as Minot Pratt in his journal entry of October 15, 1859 (Journal, 12:385).
        133  one year: Thoreau interlined in pencil after this sentence, "Vide if worthwhile Tribune January 24, 1860," referring to the following extract from the report of a January 16, 1860, meeting of the American Institute Framers’ Club in the New-York Weekly Tribune:

        The Ground-Nut.—SOLON ROBINSON read a letter from G. F. Waters of Waterville, Maine, giving his opinion about the Ground-Nut, that grows so common all over this country, in which he says:

        "A few words reported from your Club, last year, on the ‘Apios Tuberosa,’ or ‘American Ground-Nut,’ directed my attention to the same. The plant has been growing in a wet corner of my garden for years. I have obtained tubers two inches in diameter. I send inclosed a few slices from one of the large tuber, dried. You will find it rich in gums, starch, etc., with a taste like ‘Snake Root.’ There are two kind if this plant indigenous hereabouts. I have not as yet distinguished them from each other by the flower. The tuber in one kind is quite round, and has a sweet taste, yellowish meat, etc. The other, which is the most common, tapers toward the ends, one being blunter than the other; meat white, sweetish, and quite gummy. It was recommended in your Club to use rotten wood as a manure for this plant. I have found the ‘Apios Tuberosa’ to thrive best when well dressed with a rich compost. And so tenacious is it of life, that, when once well under way in a rich soil, it will be found quite difficult to eradicate it.
        "I have been told by one of our oldest inhabitants that many people lived upon this Ground-Nut during the Winter 1817 and 1818, the nuts having been collected in the Fall for food. The flower of this plant is quite showy and fragrant—the odor strongly resembles that or Orris Root. This plant would thrive in swampy lands, where boys might harvest the crop."

The specimen inclosed was tasted, and the flavor and food-like taste of it in this dried condition much admired by members. Mr. Robinson alluded to the fact of the attention of people having been called to it by our fellow-member, Andrew S. Fuller of Brooklyn, who is a practical, and reading, thinking horticulturalist and botanist.
        ANDREW  S. FULLER—This nut may be cultivated to advantage anywhere in this country. It is very nutritious, and will grow in great abundance in any rich soil. It grows very common upon Western prairies and timber land. Undoubtedly many of the people of whom we have had accounts of their starving on the route to Pike’s Peak, and in Minnesota, might, without doubt, have found this food-plant if they had only known where to look and how to designate it. It grows something like the small running pea vine. Its blossom is fragrant and pretty. It is a plant really worthy of more attention by the American people, notwithstanding it has grown wild and neglected so long.

        133  foot, you come to: I emend by adding the word "to" on authority of the journal source of this passage, the entry of September 29, 1859 (Journal, 12:358).
        134  about which historians … Britain from Virginia: After "Virginia" Thoreau wrote and did not delete "(where it did not grow," leaving the prenthesis unclosed. For information on the history of the potato, see the note above to p. 118.
        134  September in sunny places: Thoreau interlined "in sunny places" in pencil, with his caret positioned after the "—" in the construction "Sep— I see them," which means that he may have intended the interlineation to begin the next sentence rather than to end the preceding one, as I have here. The only reason I use the interlineation at the end of the preceding sentence is that the "i" in "in" is clearly lower case.
        135  end of the month: After "month" Thoreau wrote, "(23d)." His journal source, entry of October 10, 1857, establishes the year (Journal, 10:82).
        135  late as March seventh: After this phrase in the MS Thoreau wrote, "(1854)."
        136  one year: Thoreau interlined "1858" in the MS here.
        136  of varnish mahogany: Thoreau wrote in the MS here, "(In rather swampy land," after which he intelined in pencil, "not edible. Just ripe September 4, 1856."
        136  August twenty-first: After these words in the MS Thoreau penciled the note "Vide no. 15, p. 43," referring to the paragraph about cat-tail down that follows in the text and that appears on pages 43-44, 47 of his MS journal volume number 15, entry of March 23, 1853 (Journal, 5:43-44).
        136  like an eruption: In the MS journal source here (see preceding note) Thoreau wrote, "Vide amount of seed Tribune, March 16, 1860," referring to the following extract from the report of a meeting of the American Institute Framers’ Club in the New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune, March 16, 1860:

        HOW MUCH SEED TO THE ACRE.—This, one of the questions of the day, was called up, and Robert L. Pell, who is a very large farmer in Ulster County, up the river, read a very interesting and valuable paper, detailing his method of seeding various crops, which we commend to an attentive perusal. It is as follows:

        "To answer this question understandingly, we require to know the number of seed contained in a pound and the number of pounds in a bushel.…
        ["]The amazing number of seeds which many plants produce much facilitates their reproduction and wonderful multiplication. A single capsule of the common poppy contains no less than 7,500 seeds, a single stalk of corn 2,100, a single spike of the cat’s-tail, typha major, 11,000, a single tobacco plant 370,000, and a single stalk of spleenwort 1,100,000. If, by any accident, all these seeds were placed where they could develop themselves, under circumstances favorable to their growth, the twelfth generation of any of them would seed the world. The structure of nearly all seeds is similar, every one is provided by nature with an external covering suited to its nature, which protects it from the excesses of moisture or dryness, and there is no seed with which I am acquainted that is devoid of this covering, usually called pericarp."

        137  Lindley writes …substitute for it": Lindley, p. 366. I emend by adding the word "writes."
        137  Perhaps fruits … attracts birds to them: See note above to p. 97.
        138  mass of red fruit: Thoreau wrote after these words in the MS, "(Bears none in ’59)."
        138  Nawshawtuct Hill: I add the word "Hill."
        138  William Wood’s … pleasantness to the taste": William Wood, p. 21. I emend by expanding this introductory clause from "W^m. Woods N E’s Prospect London ed. 1639."
        138  Measured a thorn … in circumference: This entire sentence is derived from the journal passage Thoreau refers to when he writes in the MS here, "Large thorn Vide March 6, 1859" (Journal, 12:18).
        138  Mrs. Lincoln … sign of severe winter": Phelps (Mrs. Lincoln), pp. 207-208.
        139  middle of October: Expanded from the MS’s "mid. Oct." Thoreau often underscores his abbreviations, as he does with "mid." (italicized here), so I am confident he did not intend "mid-October."
        139  hills and rocky places: Thoreau interlined in pencil after these words, "Hill, and Tupelo Cliff." His "Hill" here, as it almost always is, is Fair Haven Hill.
        139  semi-lucent red: Thoreau interlined here in pencil, "August 26, 1860 just beginning to be ripe or red."
        139  Go a-berrying … twenty-fourth, 1859: Thoreau may have planned to extract each of these barberrying excursions from his journal and add them to Wild Fruits.
        140  middle of the barberry season: Thoreau interlined the following two pencilled notes here: "September 28, 1852, just right time" and "Vide next page but one for beauty— Few objects &c." Thoreau careted the passage he refers to in the second note (the paragraph beginning "Few objects," which in the MS appears two pages forward) for insertion after this passage. Thoreau wrote the first of the two notes in order to confirm for himself the "October first or September twenty-fifth" dates in the text.
        140  the Cedar Hill … Easterbrook’s Country: I add the word "Hill."
        140  Sophia: Thoreau’s younger sister.
        141  than the apple crop: Thoreau had written "cultivated" before "apple," but he enclosed the word in parentheses to indicate deletion.
        142  end of September: Thoreau interlined here "(as September 24, 1859)."
        142  Parker’s: Built in 1855 at the corner of School and Tremont Streets, and perhaps best known as the place where Boston Cream pies and Parker House rolls originated, the Parker House restaurant was Boston’s premier dining establishment for decades. Soon after it opened it began offering lodging accomodations and meeting rooms.
        142  rocks by the mice: Thoreau wrote at the end of this sentence, "(as November 14, 1857)."
        142  crows and even partridges: Thoreau’s interlined "(January 22, 1856)" after "crows." After "partridges" he wrote "(?)" and interlined "(January 14, 1854)" above that word ("partridge").
        142  the poet says … red berries be: Very, 1:131.
        143  chiefly), and in May: After "May," Thoreau wrote, "(as May 29, 1858)."
        143  Loudon says … increasing much in size": Loudon, 1:301-302. Thoreau emends Loudon’s "berberry" to "barberry," "4 ft. or 5 ft." to "4 or 5 feet," and "30 ft." to "30 feet."
        143  four or five feet: Between this and the following section Thoreau wrote these three notes: "for age Vide journal about 1858"; "Vide no. 17, p. 12, February 18"; and "also March 6, 1859." I have not located in Thoreau's journal of the late 1850s a passage referring to the age of barberries, but the last two notes refer to the following journal passages: 

        [Entry of February 18, 1854] Barberries still hang on the bushes, but all shrivelled. I found a bird's nest of grass and mud in a barberry bush filled full with them. It must have been done by some quadruped or bird. (Journal, 6:128-29)
        [Entry of March 6, 1859] Measured a thorn which, at six inches from the ground, or the smallest place below the branches,—for it branches soon,—was two feet three inches in circumference. Cut off a barberry on which I counted some twenty-six rings, the broadest diameter being about three and a half inches. Both these were on the west side the Yellow Birch Swamp. (Journal, 12:18)

        143  perhaps August thirty-first: Thoreau wrote after this passage, "(1854)."
        143  I see it in … Brook Swamp and elsewhere: I expand from the MS, which reads, "Vide Sawmill Brook Swamp and elsewhere."
        144  cincinnata, August twenty-seventh: Thoreau’s interlined pencil note: "not August 11, 1860."
        144  and paniculata: Thoreau wrote in ink after this phrase, "Find account of by Cornel Rock," which almost certainly refers tot he passage about Cornel Rock that follows in the text, which begins "September 4, 1857."
        145  I went up-country a week ago: From September 5 to 12, 1856, Thoreau visited the vicinities of Brattleboro, Vermont, and Walpole, New Hampshire, which are on the Connecticut River fifteen and thirty miles north of the Massachusetts border, respectively (Journal 9:61-80).
        145  October 13, 1860 … but not so long: Thoreau pencilled this sentence in the left margin vertically and did not indicate where it should be inserted.
        145  crimson berries before this is in bloom: After these words in the MS Thoreau interlined in pencil, "September 7, 1860, begun, and probably the first." He does not mention sumac in his journal of September 1860 until 18 September, when he wrote the following sentence, which appears in the "Smooth Sumac" section: "Smooth sumach berries are about past their beauty and the white creamy incrustation mostly dried up." 
        145  quite sparingly here: Thoreau wrote after this sentence, "(Vide Knoll below Cliff—at sunset interval and so on)."
        145  the next April: Thoreau wrote after this phrase, "(22d 1856)."
        146  August twenty-eighth: Thoreau interlined in pencil here, "(1859)."
        146  In the spring of 1857 … Pumpkin (or Squash): According to Report of the Commissioner, beginning in 1852 a "considerable share of the money appropriated by Congress for Agricultural purposes has been devoted to the procurement and distribution of seeds, roots, and cutting" (p. [v]). These were procured "from every quarter of the globe" and were distributed through the mails in "smaller packages" (p. vii). Later in this same volume, in an article titled "Report on the Seeds and Cuttings Recently Introduced into the United States," and under the subtitle "Plants Cultivated for Their Berries or Fleshy Fruits," is listed the "Large Yellow-fleshed Pumpkin, or Squash, (Potiron jaune gros,) from France; the fruit of which is very heavy, of a gold yellow within, and grows to an enormous size" (p. xxi). Potiron jaune gros is French for "large yellow pumpkin." I have emended "Poitrine" in the MS to "Potiron" on authority of both the listing in Report of the Commissionerand the fact that poitrine is French for "chest" (ribs and breastbone).
        146  pumpkin which weighed: I add the word "weighed."
        146  together 186¹/4 pounds: I add the word "pounds." Thoreau wrote this sentence, the preceding sentence, and the following sentence in such a way that he was able to line up the three numerals vertically with a horizontal line under the second numeral, like the line under an addend in an addition problem. Thoreau wrote the correct sum, "309³/4," under the horizontal line, but he also rounded that sum off to "310," which appears in the correct location in the following sentence. I emend by not underlining or italicizing "186¹/4" and by omitting the sum of the two weights, "309³/4."
        147  The big squash … ten cents a piece: Thoreau originally wrote, "The big squash took a premium at the Middlesex Show, and I understand that the man who bought it intends to sell the seeds for ten cents apiece." Later he revised the sentence in preparation for use in "The Succession of Forest Trees," which he delivered as a lecture during the Middlesex County Agricultural Fair (often called the "Cattle Show") on September 20, 1860, and published just over two weeks later, on October 6, 1860, in the New-York Weekly Tribune. The revised version of the sentence in both the MS and in the lecture-essay as published in the Tribune is identical to the one here, except that I emend by omitting the words "your fair" and using in their stead the words "Middlesex Show" from the MS. (Thoreau originally wrote the phrase "Middlesex Show," later interlined "your fair that fall" above the phrase, but never deleted the original phrase.)
        147  Signor Blitz: I have not been able to locate any reference to this person or character. .
        147  men love darkness rather than light: An echo, possibly, of Psalms 139:12, which reads, "The darkness and the light are both alike to thee."
        147  As for pumpkins … and "Acorn" squashes: This passage is an expansion of Thoreau’s interlineation, "Pumpkins and squashes. Vide Harris in Patent Office Reports for 1854, p. 208." Harris’s remarks about pumpkins and squashes appear under the title "Pumpkins" in Report of the Commissioner (spine title: "Patent Office Reports, 1854, Agriculture"), p. 208, with the following introductory remarks: "The common field pumpkin, (Cucurbita pepo,) as well as the squashes, properly so called, is believed to be of American origin, as will appear from the following remarks by Dr. T. W. Harris, of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts."
        148  White ash begins: After "ash" Thoreau interlined in pencil, (black September 2d)," which note was likely used as the basis for Thoreau distinguishing between the two ashes and giving each a separate section (see "Black Ash" section p. 175).
        149  It is whitening: Thoreau interlined in pencil the note, "Handsome as soon as leaves fell about middle of October."
        149  the end of December): I emend by adding "the" before "end."
        149  broken, and are: I emend by using "are" rather than "is" in the MS, which disagrees with the subject, "berries."
        149  pearly or waxen: After both "pearly" and "waxen," Thoreau wrote "(?)." Also, he interlined here, with a caret after "waxen," "what is its color?"
        149  beautiful as Satan: Although this sentiment may at first seem peculiar, it agrees with John Milton’s portrayal of Satan at the beginning of Paradise Lost. Milton had to portray God’s and mankind’s arch-adversary as an extremely attractive character, albeit fundamentally evil, for to diminish Satan too much (particularly at the outset of the eipc) would risk portraying God and mankind very unflatteringly as omnipotent bully and dependent dupes, respectively).
        149  With its long … against the snow: The MS reads, "With its long fruit stems scored is an agreeable object seen against the snow," but the journal source of this sentence reads, "The poison sumac with its stems hanging down on every side is a very agreeable object now seen against the snow" (entry of January 27, 1852; Journal, 3:239). I therefore emend the MS by adding "and" and changing what appears to be "scored," which makes no apparent sense, to "hanging," which most closely agrees with the journal source.
        149  now in mid-winter: Thoreau wrote at the end of this sentence, "(January 5, 1858)."
        150  any bird eats them: At the end of this section in the MS Thoreau pencilled the following notes: "Leaves begin to fall September 29, 1859," "appear handsome as soon as the berries begin to fall," and "Odor of, Vide no. 18, p. 281." The latter of these three references is to a passage in his MS journal entry of March 9, 1855 (Journal, 7:236), "The heart-wood of the poison dogwood, when I break it down with my hand, has a singular rotten, yellow look and a spirituous or apothecary odor."
        150  August thirtieth: I delete from the end of this line the query "or earlier?"
        151  Theophrastus includes …refers it to Asia: Thoreau’s source for the observations on Theophrastus and Columella is a footnote in Pliny, Natural History, bk. 14, chap. 3 (3:218 n. 11) by the translators, Bostock and Riley, who point out in another footnote, "It was generally known in very early times in Egypt and Greece, and it is now generally considered that [the grape vine] is indigenous throughout the tract that stretches to the south, from the the [sic] mountains of Mazandiran on the Caspian to the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Sea, and eastward through Khorassan and Cabul to the base of the Himalayas" (Natural History, bk 14, chap. 3; 3:215 n. 2). Henry G. Bohn was the publisher. I emend by pluralizing "translator" in the MS.
        151  Pliny complains … climbing the trees"): Pliny, Natural History, bk. 14, chap. 1 (3:217).
        151  Pliny says further … day, for instance: Pliny, Natural History, bk. 14, chap. 3 (3:219).
        151  Pliny says of the … blood of the earth.…’": Thoreau translated these passages from Pliny, Historiĉ Mundi, bk. 14, chaps. 3, 7; Bostock and Riley’s translation of these passages (again, Henry G. Bohn was the publisher) is substantively the same as Thoreau’s. I emend by using an ellipsis at the end of the final passage here (after "blood of the earth") rather than "&c" in the MS. Thoreau may have intended to include the remainder of the paragraph, which in the Bostock-Riley translation reads (immediately after "blood of the earth"), "hemlock is a poison to man, wine a poison to hemlock.’ And if Alexander had only followed this advice, he certainly would not have had to answer for slaying his friends in his drunken fits. In fact, we may feel ourselves quite justified in saying that there is nothing more useful than wine for strengthening the body, while, at the same time, there is nothing more pernicious as a luxury, if we are not on our guard against excess" (Natural History, bk. 14, chap. 7; 3:238-39).
        152  the Vineland of the North men: The early Norse explorers referred to undetermined portions of the New World as "Vineland."
        152  hanging over the water: Thoreau interlined in the MS here, "Minot’s green grape shooting."
        152  Early in September: Thoreau wrote after this phrase, "(as 6th, 1851)."
        153  September twentieth: Thoreau originally wrote "September 8, 1854" but later deleted "8, 1854" and interlined "20," which my policy is to alter by spelling out, as I do here.
        154  we rowed along: Thoreau does not identify his companion in the journal source of this passage, his entry of September 13, 1856, but he most often was joined on his daily excursions by his neighbor, the poet William Ellery Channing.
        154  Jug Island … Grape Island): Jug Island is on the Concord River about half a mile north of Hill’s Bridge (also called Nashua Road Bridge) in Billerica, a town two miles northeast of Concord, on the other side of the town of Bedford.
        154  memorable: Thoreau interlined the following two notes in the MS here, the first in pencil and the other in ink: "Vide September 18, 1858 in Autumnal Tints for graping," and "Grapes are singularly various for a wild fruit—in color, size, and flavor—purple, red, and green—and so on and so forth." His reference to "Autumnal Tints" may be either to his lecture-essay of that title or to the larger work, still unpublished, that his lecture-essay formed a part of, but Thoreau usually referred to that larger work as The Fall of the Leaf. The passage from his journal entry of September 18, 1858, reads as follows: "Finding grapes, we proceeded to pluck them, tempted more by their fragrance and color than their flavor, though some were very palatable. We gathered many without getting out of the boat, as we paddled back, and more on shore close to the water’s edge, piling them up in the prow of the boat till they reached to the top of the boat,—a long sloping heap of them and very handsome to behold, being of various colors and sizes, for we even added green ones for variety. Some, however, were mainly green when ripe. You cannot touch some vines without bringing down more single grapes in a shower around you than you pluck in bunches, and such as strike the water are lost, for they do not float. But it is a pity to break the handsome clusters." The "we" of this passage is Thoreau and "C.," the poet William Ellery Channing, who lived across the street from Thoreau in Concord.
        155  Eagleswood Grape: Thoreau’s name for the grape he found in the vicinity of the Eagleswood Community, for which see the note above for p. 120.
        155  one and a half wide: I emend by adding "wide."
        155  my mother: I emend by adding "my."
        155  described by Michaux: I have not been able to locate the passage in Michaux that Thoreau alludes to.
        155  Brattleboro: A city in southeastern Vermont on the Connecticut River, as Thoreau points out, and fifty-eight miles west-northwest of Concord, Massachusetts.
        155  About the 10th … Eagleswood, New Jersey … eaten in France: Thoreau’s host while at the Eagleswood Community was Marcus Springs, a wealthy Quaker, avid abolitionist, and fervent reformer. For Eagleswood, see the note above for p. 120.
        156  to Vitis ĉstivalis: Thoreau wrote in the MS after this sentence, "(Vide date if necessary)," apparently referring to the following remaining material in the journal source of this paragraph: "Vide fruit and leaves. One I opened has only two seeds, while one of the early ones at Brattleboro has only two, but one of the late ones of Brattleboro has only two, which also I have called Vitis ĉstivalis" (Journal, 9:138).
        156  Torrey … vicinity of New York": Torrey, 1:147.
        156  Naushon: The largest of the Elizabeth Islands off the southeastern point of Cape Cod, between Martha’s Vineyard and New Bedford.
        157  Dr. Carpenter says … resist moisture": Carpenter, p. 217.
        157  Pursh says … called Fox-grape": Pursh, p. 169.
        157  Beverly … called fox grapes": Beverly, p. 133.
        158  say September fifteenth: Thoreau interlined in ink below this line in the MS, "notice cluster July 24."
        159  woods not ripe: After "ripe" in the MS Thoreau wrote, "Vide September 5, 1860 or same in Dispersion of Seeds," referring to a journal passage in his journal entry of that date (Journal, 14:74), a passage which he includes later in this section and which begins "One afternoon, having landed far down the river.…" This passage also appears in Thoreau’s The Dispersion of Seeds, p. 97.
        159  One afternoon … a companion: Thoreau interlined "(September 5, 1860)" in the MS after "One afternoon," and he interlined "(at Ball’s Hill)" after "down the river." The companion is identified from Thoreau’s journal entry of 5 September 1860 as William Ellery Channing (Journal, 14:74).
        159  walked about through: The MS reads "walked about there through," so I emend by omitting "there" to avoid redundancy. Thoreau had added the words "by the shore there" later and had neglected to delete the first occurrence of the word "there."
        159  lemna on a ditch: The Oxford English Dictionary defines lemna as "A genus of aquatic plant" and "Duckweed."
        159  By August second I see it yellowing: Thoreau originally wrote "August ninth," but he later deleted "ninth" and inserted "second, 1853." I emend by dropping the year. After "yellowing" Thoreau interlined in pencil, "September 20, 1860 yellow but not red."
        159  reveals the red inside: Thoreau interlined in pencil after this sentence, "How it is dipped in hot water." I have found nothing in Thoreau’s writings, including his journal, where he writes about dipping the fruit of wax-work in hot water.
        160  burrs make a show: Thoreau penciled into the margin beside this observation, "June 29, 1854."
        160  Loudon says … a different interpretation: Loudon, 3:2016. Thoreau renders Loudon’s "korus" as "loxus."
        160  shaggy fruit now: Thoreau interlined in ink here, "(July 24, 1852)."
        160  Thomson … an ardent brown: Thomson, p. 88. I emend by correcting Thoreau misspelling in the MS, "Thompson."
        160  Indeed, you cannot … not worked yet: Thoreau drew a single light-pencil use mark through these passages, which may indicate that he intended to delete them.
        161  not worked yet: Thoreau interlined the following note in the MS here: "(Vide August 29 and September 3d and 13, 1858 for squirrel) Vide Dispersion of Seeds." He refers first to the three journal passages, which he intended to transcribe for use here, and then to his revised version of those passages in The Dispersion of Seeds, pp. 145-46 (Berg Collection, "Dispersion of Seeds" folder, accession numbers 330-31), which I incorporate into the text here, from "The striped squirrels begin" to "show that they are empty."
        162  Assabet River: I add the word "River" here.
        162  red-edged: Thoreau wrote in the MS after this word, "(Vide perhaps Wordsworth’s lines on savaging hazel-nut bushes—Loudon p. 2022—or put it with stoning chestnut trees)," referring in the latter case to his own passages in the "Chestnut" section of Wild Fruits about jarring chestnut trees with stones to make the nuts fall (see pp. 211, 212, 215), and in the former case to Loudon, 3:2022, where an early version of Wordsworth’s well-known poem "Nutting" is quoted as follows:

                 ——— "Among the woods
And o’er the pathless rocks I forced my way;
Until at length I came to one dear nook,
Unvisited, where not a broken bough
Droop’d with its wither’d leaves, ungracious sign
Of devastation! But the hazels rose
Tall and erect, with milk-white clusters hung,—
A virgin scene! A little while I stood,
Breathing with such suppression of the heart
As joy delights in; and with wise restraint,
Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed
The banquet. Then up I arose,
And dragg’d to earth each branch and bough with crash,
And merciless ravage; and the shady nook
Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower,
Deform’d and sullied, patiently gave up
Their quiet being: but, unless I now
Confound my present feelings with the past,
Even then, when from the bower I turn’d away
Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings,
I felt a sense of pain when I beheld
The silent trees, and the intruding skies."

        162  I sometimes see … has left them: Thoreau drew a single vertical use mark through this paragraph, which may indicate that he intended to delete it from the text.
        162  brazen tipt): It was a common practice of the time to place bronze caps, often in the shape of balls, on the tips of oxen to blunt the damage of getting gored.
        162  Loudon … inhabitants as shot": Loudon, 3:2030.
        163  common September twenty-seventh: I emend by omitting the year, "1852," from the end of this sentence.
        163  dark blue-black berries on slender peduncles: In the MS the modifiers to "berries" are unhyphenated. They could be hyphenated either as I have them here or as "dark-blue, black"—or could even be placed in a series, as "dark, blue, black." Also, after "slender" Thoreau wrote, "(threads)," the parentheses apparently indicating deletion.
        164  Phillips …Dr. Holland pease: Henry Phillips, 2:45. After "Tusser," Thoreau quietly omits the clause in Phillips, "(who wrote in the reign of Queen Mary)." Phillips points out that "Gerard spells ["peason"] in the same manner, in the succeeding reign" and that "In the time of Charles the First, Dr. Philemon Holland spells it ‘peas,’ since which it has been abbreviated into ‘pea.’"
        164  Phillips … beans for vulgar fare.’": Henry Phillips, 2:68.
        164  Gerarde … to be taken away": Gerarde, p. 1216.
        164  Emerson says … commerce there: Emerson, Report on Trees, p. 406. Thoreau quotes what Emerson says of the European cranberry, which Emerson calls Oxycoccus palustris. Emerson also states, "Its berries are applied to the same purposes as our craberry, and great quantities are sent from Russia to the more southern countries" (Report on Trees, p. 406). Of "our cranberry," the common cranberry, which he classifies Oxycoccus marcocarpus, Emerson writes, "The berries are gathered in great quantities, and [are] used for making tarts and sauce, for which purpose they are superior to any other article, especially as they have the advantage of being kept without difficulty throughout the winter.… Great quantities of the berries are exported to Europe" (Report on Trees, p. 406).
        164  sphagnum mountains: I expand "mountains" from "mts." in the MS. Thoreau commonly underlined (here, italicized) his abbreviations, as well as placed a period after them. In addition to using the abbreviation here, he uses it in his journal twice elsewhere in the same context ("mts." of sphagnum"): in his entry of December 25, 1858 (Journal, 11:378), and in the journal source of this passage (October 17, 1859; Journal, 12:396-97). The abbreviation could be expanded to "mounts" or perhaps to "mounds," but in the latter journal entry Thoreau actually writes about these sphagnum mounds coming up to his "idea of a mountainous country better than many actual mountains" he had seen (Journal, 12:396). Finally, although the editors of the 1906 edition of Thoreau’s journal read "sphagnous" before "mountains" in the journal source to this passage, the Wild Fruits MS (Berg Collection, "Notes on Fruits," accession number 248) clearly reads "sphagnum."
        165  Thanksgiving dinner: After this phrase in the MS, Thoreau writes, "Vide Journal August 30 (and September 2d and 3d), 1856 for account of picking them— Vide account also of eating them—where? Vide Loudon extract Common Place Book, vol. 1, p. 346." Four of these five sources have been incorporated into the text in the order indicated and are separately noted below; the remaining one, the account of eating European cranberries, I have been unable to locate, although Thoreau probably confused this species with the mountain cranberry, Vaccinium vitis-idĉa, which he gathered while visiting Mount Monadnock in early August 1860 and about which he wrote in his journal entry of August 5, 1860, "We stewed these berries for our breakfast the next morning, and thought them the best berry on the mountain, though, not being quite ripe, the berry was a little bitterish—but not the juice of it. It is such an acid as the camper-out craves" (Journal, 14:15). He mentions in a footnote to this passage that he "Brought some home, and stewed them the 12th, and all thought them quite like, and as good as, the common cranberry" (Journal, 14:15, n. 1).
        165  I have come out … matter of public rejoicing: The source for these nine paragraphs is Thoreau’s journal entry of August 30, 1856 (MS vol. 15, pp. 35-42, 46-48; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York). As with Thoreau’s Wild Fruits MS, I have emended accidentals in this source to conform to the editorial standards for this volume (Wild Fruits) and have noted substantive emendations. See the preceding note for Thoreau’s MS note providing the rationale for including this material here. At the end of the seventh of these nine paragraphs in his journal, Thoreau wrote, "Vide 4 pages forward." The fourth page after that note contains the end of a sentence from one paragraph, another full paragraph, and the beginning of a long paragraph—with no indication in the journal MS if Thoreau would have continued his Wild Fruits text with the full paragraph or with the beginning of the long paragraph. I have opted to continue the text here with the beginning of the long paragraph; the full paragraph, which Thoreau may have intended to incorporate in the text between the seventh and eighth paragraphs here, reads, "Those small gray sparrow-egg cranberries lay so prettily in the recesses of the sphagnum, I could wade for hours in the cold water gazing at them, with a swarm of mosquitoes hovering about my bare legs—but at each step the friendly sphagnum in which I sank protected my legs like a buckler—not a crevice by which my foes could enter" (MS vol. 15, p. 46; compare Journal, 9:44).
        165  small cranberry, Vaccinium oxycoccus: Following this word in Thoreau’s source, his journal entry of 30 August 1856, he wrote, "which Emerson says is the common cranberry of the north of Europe" (MS vol. 15, p. 35; compare Journal, 9:35). I emend by deleting this clause, which is redundant because Thoreau previously quoted this passage from Emerson (see p. 164 in the text and note for p. 164 above). Thoreau’s source in Emerson is Report on Trees, p. 405.
        165  Beck Stow’s Swamp: I add the word "Swamp" here.
        165  drives Kansas … border ruffians: The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 resulted in pro-slavery Missourians or "border ruffians" crossing the Kansas-Missouri border in 1855 to intimidate anti-slavery settlers and elect a pro-slavery legislature by stuffing ballot boxes. Fierce resistance from anti-slavery forces throughout the spring and summer of 1856 led to widespread guerilla warfare, and the nation’s newspapers had columns almost daily about what soon came to be called "Bleeding Kansas."
        166  go consul to Liverpool … dollars for it: In 1852 Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in Concord and wrote the campaign biography of his college friend and Democratic Presidential nominee Franklin Pierce, in return for which he was the following year awarded a consulship in Liverpool, which "was deemed the most lucrative in the foreign service" because in addition to the regular salary, "the consul received ‘emoluments’—a percentage on all American shipping in the busy English port" (Mellow, p. 415). Mellow suggests that the consulship gave Hawthorne the "prospect of clearing $5000 to $7000 a year during a four-year term," an enormous sum at the time.
        166  sphagnum,—their: I emend by changing "its" to "their" to agree with the antecedent, "cranberries."
        168  good genius seemed to: I add the word "to."
        168  Slocum: Although this is a popular surname in New England today, as well as in Thoreau’s time, Concord Births, Marriages, and Deaths lists no one by that name; and I have found no indication of what connotations the surname might have suggested, if any.
        168  wild vine of the Assabet: At this point in his MS journal (vol. 15, p. 42) Thoreau wrote "Vide 4 pages forward," referring to the passage (on p. 46) beginning "I see that all is not garden.…" But see the note above to p. 165 ("Thanksgiving dinner") for another possible reference on p. 46.
        168  Middlesex County: The Town of Concord is located almost precisely in the geographic center of Middlesex County, which extends from the New Hampshire border (north) to the Town of Holliston (south), and from the Town of Cambridge (east) to the Town of Ashby (west). Cambridge is the seat of the county.
        168  the moon, supposing it to be uninhabited: The following portion of a dialogue between a newspaper reporter and a professional astronomer appeared in March 1861 (for source, see "Night Notes" in "Works Cited") and suggests what moderately well-educated people of Thoreau's time thought about the issue of life on the moon: 

        Astronomer—The moon’s surface presents every appearance of a chaotic world, whose surface is all scarred over with the effects of the struggle of mighty interior forces.
        Reporter—Rather a wild place for a residence.
        Astronomer—Pythagoras and Orpheus, and perhaps Herodotus also, believed the moon to be inhabited by giants, though modern glasses detect no traces whatever of any creature living, or having ever lived, upon its surface. Some astronomers claim to have detected evidences of vegetation -- tracks of forest, leafy or leafless, according to the season. But this remarkable conclusion is of too profound an interest and significance to be received without a far greater mass of evidence that has yet been adduced in its support. No; the moon seems to be a world unborn -- a mass of matter not yet called to take its place in the retinue of living, habitable globes. Is it not sublime to reflect that the mandate to be Almighty is yet to go forth, ushering it into a life of beautiful forms, swathing it with a life-sustaining atmosphere, bathing it with rain and do, clothing with verdure the nakedness of its rocks, and filling its desolate caverns and craters with cheerful living voices! If man shall be permitted to watch from the earth the unfolding of this new existence, the birth of a world, what a sublime joy awaits the race!

        168  healthily attract: I emend by deleting an ampersand between these words, obviously an oversight on Thoreau’s part.
        168  Hodge's wall as good as the ĉrolite at Mecca: Concord Births, Marriages, and Deaths does not list a Hodge as having lived in Concord during Thoreau’s time, but Thoreau may have been thinking of Maine geologist James Thacher Hodge, whose 1838 report on the geology of Maine and Massachusetts Thoreau read and occasionally quoted from. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ĉrolite as "A stone … which has fallen to the earth from, or rather through, the atmosphere," and Thoreau’s reference is probably to the so-called "Black Stone of Mecca," a Muslim object of veneration that is built into the eastern wall of the Ka’bah, a small shrine within the Great Mosque of Mecca.
        169  makes two blades … is a benefactor: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, "Voyage to Brobdingnag," Ch. 7: "And [the King of Brobdingnag] gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together."
        169  The botanist refers … than an eastern one!: The source for this paragraph is Thoreau’s journal entry of September 2, 1856 (MS vol. 15, pp. 55-56; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York). See the note above for p. 165 for Thoreau’s MS note providing the rationale for including this material here. The selection of this particular paragraph from Thoreau’s entry of September 2, 1856, is based solely on my judgment that none of the other material in that entry would be appropriate for inclusion here.
        169  So many plants … there it is at home: The source for this paragraph is Thoreau’s journal entry of September 3, 1856 (MS vol. 15, pp. 59-60; The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; accession number MA 1302-15). See the note above for p. 165 above for Thoreau’s MS note providing the rationale for including this material here. The selection of this particular paragraph from Thoreau’s entry of September 3, 1856, is based solely on my judgment that none of the other material in that entry would be appropriate for inclusion here.
        169  Loudon writes … harnessing horses: Loudon, 2:1168, 1169. I emend the source, Thoreau, "Common Place Book 1," pp. 346-47, by adding square brackets and ellipses as necessary to accommodate the offset format; by adding to the introductory clause the words "Loudon writes of"; and by deleting an ellipsis before the close-parenthesis in "(Don’s Mill.)." Where Thoreau completes a sentence by writing, "[that is, of England and in America]," Loudon writes, "as in Lincolnshire and the neighbouring part of Norfolk" (2:1168). Interestingly, in the left margin beside the assertion about Russian cranberries being better than American ones, Thoreau drew a heavy, bold exclamation mark. In Loudon, "Eng." means "English"; "Smith and Withering" refers to "English Botany. By Sir J. E. Smith and Messrs. Sowerby. Lond[on] 1790-1814, 36 vols. 8vo." (1:cxcix) and to "Withering’s Botany. A Systematical Arrangement of British Plants. By W. Withering … ed. 7. with additions, London, 1830, 4 vols., 8vo." (1:ccxxvi); and "Don’s Mill." refers to "Don’s Miller’s Dictionary[:] A general System of Gardening and Botany … founded on Miller’s Dictionary … By George Don … 3 vols. published in 1837" (1:cxcviii).
        170  Of "Marish Worts … or Moore berries": Gerarde, p. 1419. This paragraph is written on a scrap affixed with red sealing wax to a leaf with the preceding MS source material on the European cranberry. Thoreau left no indication where he wanted the text placed, so its placement here is conjectural. I emend by adding the words "Of" and "Gerarde says" to the clause introducing the quotation. After the sentence ending "taste rough and astringent" in the MS Thoreau drew a horizontal line, and just above that line he wrote, "This all," which I have not been able to interpret. The complete sentence in Gerarde that Thoreau abbreviates in the MS reads, "Valerius Cordus nameth them Oxycoccon: wee have called them Vaccinia palustria, or Marish Wortleberries, of the likenesse they have to the other berries: some also call them Mosse-Berries, or Moore-berries."
        170  Gray … ripen in September: Gray, (1848), p. 394, says, "the dark blue fruit borne on a red stalk, ripe in September."
        170  On Hill and trees northwest of P. Dudley's: Thoreau appears to be referring here to the unusual sassafras he saw on August 15, 1854, about which he wrote in his journal of that date: "A mile and a half northeast of Strawberry Hill, two or three large and very healthy and perfect sassafras trees (three large at least), very densely clothed with dark-green lemon (?) or orange (?) tree shaped leaves, singularly healthy.  This half a mile or so west of the [Paul] Dudley House.  Comparatively few of the leaves were of the common form, i. e. three-lobed, but rather simple (Journal, 6:443-44).
        171  According to Loudon … middle of September: Loudon, 3:1439. "In America, in the neighborhood of New York, the nuts are ripe about the middle of September, a fortnight earlier than those of the other species of walnut."
        171  Alcott: The reference is to the educator Amos Bronson Alcott, Thoreau’s good friend and father of Louisa May Alcott.
        171  Thornton and Campton: Two small towns in north-central New Hampshire between eight and eleven miles north-northwest of Squam Lake, and between seventeen and twenty miles south of Franconia Notch.
        171  Michaux … species of walnut": Michaux, 1:162-163.
        171  About the first … come to get them: I derive the text of this paragraph from a later version of this passage (Berg Collection, "Dispersion of Seeds" folder, accession number 228) because the earlier, Wild Fruits MS version (Berg Collection, "Notes on Fruits" folder, accession number 252) has a single vertical pencil line through it, which may indicate that Thoreau intended to delete the passage from Wild Fruits but may just as well indicate that he transcribed the earlier version for use in one or both of these later manuscripts.
        172  Curving down August tenth 1860: Thoreau wrote this sentence between the lines that compose the preceding sentence without indicating where to place the interlineation, so my placement of this sentence here is conjectural.
        172  lily (Nuphar advena): In the MS Thoreau wrote the Latin name after the date, "September first," so I emend by moving the Latin name to this location.
        173  Brattleboro: See the note above for p. 155.
        173  Marblehead: A town on the coast of Massachusetts eighteen miles north of Boston and twenty-seven miles east of Concord Center.
        173  Gerarde … thro’ this land": Gerarde, p. 347. I emend by adding both the material in square brackets and the brackets themselves.
        174  of Viburnum acerifolium: I emend by adding these two words, which are clearly implied in the MS.
        175  Brattleboro: See the note above for p. 155.
        175  Loudon calls them "black": Loudon, 2:1034.
        176  Gerarde says … rich man’s mouth": Gerarde, pp. 1269, 1271. In this instance Thoreau spelled Gerarde’s name in the MS without the terminal "e," a common alternate spelling but contrary to Thoreau’s usual spelling, which I here restore.
        177  Woodbine, September third: I emend by omitting "1858" after "third."
        177  Old Gerarde … ripe "in August": Gerarde treats "the Ash tree" on pp. 1471-72 and under "The Time" writes, "The leaves and keyes come forth in Aprill and May, yet is not the seed ripe before the fall of the leafe" (p. 1472). He treats "the wilde Ashe, otherwise called Quicke-Beame or Quicken tree" on pp. 1473-74 and under "The Time" writes, "The wild Ash floures in May, and the berries are ripe in September" (p. 1473). In neither chapter does Gerarde use the word "August."
        177  days—say sixth: I emend by deleting as redundant after this line the line "August 25, 1859 partly turned," which Thoreau copied from the preceding MS page.
        177  "The mountain ash … North America": Nuttall, 2:63. I emend by adding "says" and by moving "Nuttall" from the end of this quotation to the beginning.
        177  In the Geological … forty feet high: James Richardson, p. 51.
        177  Petersboro: Also spelled "Petersborough." A town in south-central New Hampshire eleven miles north of the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border, and forty-three miles northwest of Concord Center.
        177  Brattleboro: See the note above for p. 155.
        178  Osterman … seeds and roots": Pulteney, pp. 420-21, where "M. G. Osterman" is the author of a brief essay on "Culina mutata."
        178  "Oak corn, that is ac-corn, or acorn": In the MS Thoreau cites his source with the note, "Burnet quoted by Loudon, p. 1721," referring to Loudon’s remark: "‘Little as we now depend for sustenance on the fruits of our forest trees,’ Burnet observes, ‘and great as is the value of their wood, the reverse was formerly the case: oak corn, that is, ac-cern, or acorns, some centuries ago, formed an important food both for man and beast.’ (Amœn. Quer., fol. 1.)" (3:1721). The citation "Amœn. Quer., fol. 1." is expanded in Loudon’s "List of Books Referred to" as "Amœnitates Querneĉ. 1722. By the late Professor Burnet, published in Nos. 5. and 6. of Burgess’s Eidodendron. 1833. folio." (1:cxci). Thoreau seems to have regarded Loudon’s "ac-cern" as a typographical error, for he clearly writes "ac-corn" in the MS.
        178  all kinds are green yet: I derived the last three words here, "are green yet," from the journal source (Journal, 12:324).
        179  Michaux … upon their hind feet": Michaux, 1:83. Thoreau wrote this quotation in the upper-right corner of the MS page at a later time and did not indicate where it should be inserted in the text. I insert it, based solely on its position at the top of the page, into the text before the other material on the MS page.
        179  When Gosnold … grew on the mainland: Both Archer (for Gosnold) and Pring mention oaks several times in their relations, but not the shrub specifically. I have not been able to determine if Champlain mentions shrub oaks specifically in his relation.
        180  Emerson’s Lot: Of the various lots around Concord that Ralph Waldo Emerson owned in the early 1860s, it is not clear which this might be. His holdings were especially extensive in the Walden Woods, particularly around Walden Pond.
        181  on the trees still: In the MS Thoreau continued this sentence with the words, "and in some places," which is the beginning of another clause in his journal source, the whole of which reads, "and in some places at least half the shrub-oak acorns" (Journal, 12:384). I emend by deleting "and in some places."
        182  Michaux … are "rarely abundant": Michaux, 1:20.
        183  When the Lacedĉmonians … will hinder thee": Herodotus, p. 27. This passage is written on a scrap affixed with wax to a full MS page, but Thoreau did not indicate where in the text on the full page he wanted to insert the passage. My insertion at this location arbitrary.
        183  Dodonean fruit?: Dodona in Epirus, Greece, was in ancient times regarded as the sanctuary of Zeus, the chief Greek god, and the Dodonean oaks were reputed to be the source of oracles, presumably from the rustling of their leaves.
        183  The Indians used to boil them in a log: Thoreau source for this observation has not been located.
        183  nuts abstracted: After these words in the MS Thoreau wrote, "(Vide perhaps date)," referring to the remainder of his journal passage for October 11, 1859, which reads as follows:

Looking under large oaks (black and white), the acorns appear to have fallen or been gathered by squirrels, and so on. I see in many distant places stout twigs (black or scarlet oak) three or four inches long which have been gnawed off by the squirrels, with four to seven acorns on each, and left on the ground. These twigs have been gnawed off on each side of the nuts in order to make them more portable, I suppose—the nuts all abstracted and sides of the cups broken to get them out.

        183  wholesome, shining, dark-chestnut color: The MS reads, "wholesome shining dark chestnut (?) color," so the hyphenation is editorially supplied and the query omitted. Note that Thoreau later extracted this same passage from his journal as the first extract after the end of his earlier, 188-page draft of Wild Fruits (see notes below to p. 185 and p. 186).
        184  twenty-sixth 1853): I emend by moving Thoreau’s note of the year, "1853," from the beginning of this sentence to its current location.
        184  all kinds have fallen: Thoreau wrote after this sentence in the MS, "(No)."
        184  1852. I find an: I add the word "an" here.
        184  What proportion sound: Thoreau wrote "Vide date." in the MS here, referring to the remainder of the journal passage, which I include in the text ("In about five quarts … whatever you can get"; Journal, 12:157).
        184  How oak woods are produced if necessary: Thoreau’s note: "(that is, May 13, 1856, no. 21, and June 3d." By "no. 21" he means vol. 21 of his MS journal, which contains the two entries referred to, which are as follows:

        [From entry of May 13, 1856 (Journal, 8:335)] I suspect that I can throw a little light on the fact that when a dense pine wood is cut down oaks, etc., may take its place. There were only pines, no other tree. They are cut off, and, after two years have elapsed, you see oaks, or perhaps a few other hard woods, springing up with scarcely a pine amid them, and you wonder how the acorns could have lain in the ground so long without decaying. There is a good example at Loring's lot. But if you look through a thick pine wood, even the exclusively pitch pine ones, you will detect many little oaks, birches, etc., sprung probably from seeds carried into the thicket by squirrels, etc., and blown thither, but which are overshadowed and choked by the pines. This planting under the shelter of the pines may be carried on annually, and the plants annually die, but when the pines are cleared off, the oaks, etc., having got just the start they want, and now secured favorable conditions, immediately spring up to trees. Scarcely enough allowance has been made for the agency of squirrels and birds in dispersing seeds.
        [From entry of June 3, 1856 (Journal, 8:363)] While clearing a line through shrub oak, which put his eyes out, [John Hosmer] asked, "What is shrub oak made for…?" Hosmer says he had a lot of pine in Sudbury, which being cut, shrub oak came up. He cut and burned and raised rye, and the next year (it being surrounded by pine woods on three sides) a dense growth of pine sprang up. As I have said before, it seems to me that the squirrels and so on disperse the acoms and so forth amid the pines, they being a covert for them to lurk in, and when the pines are cut the fuzzy shrub oaks and so on have the start. If you cut the shrub oak soon, probably pines or birches, maples, or other trees which have light seeds will spring next, because squirrels and so forth will not he likely to carry acorns into open land. If the pine wood had been surrounded by white oak, probably that would have come up after the pine.

These two journal passages were the first articulations of Thoreau’s theory on forest succession, later formalized in his lecture-essay "The Succession of Forest Trees" and expanded into the book-length MS The Dispersion of Seeds.
        184  Michaux … is peculiarly downy: Michaux, 1:44.
        184  Michaux … those of the other species": Michaux, 1:96.
        184  Scarlet-oak acorn figured: In the MS after these words Thoreau wrote, "Vide date and also perhaps p. 54," by which he means that the drawing in his journal entry of September 19, 1854 (Journal, 7:47), should be inserted in the Wild Fruits text at this point and that he considered placing the following text from p. 54 of his MS journal vol. 18 (Journal, 7:51) into Wild Fruits at this location as well:

        I am surprised to see balls on the scarlet oak. Its acorn and cup are peculiarly top-shaped, the point of the acorn being the bottom. The cup is broader than in the black oak, making a broader shelf about the acorn, and is more pear-shaped or prolonged at top. The acorn is not so rounded, but more tapering at point. And some scarlet oak leaves which I see have their two main veins and diverging ribs nearly opposite, while in a black-oak leaf these veins, and hence lobes, are not nearly opposite.

In his journal Thoreau wrote "Not general" in the left margin next to this passage, and I emend his journal text for this passage by adding the word "see" in the last sentence.
        185  November 10, 1858: Thoreau wrote after this citation in the MS, "Jays plucking and Vide p 90 for form," which refers first to the remainder of the paragraph in the text after this citation, which I derive from MS journal volume 28 ( Journal, :11:308), and second to the "form" or drawing of the scarlet-oak acorn, which is derived from MS journal vol. 28, p. 90 (Journal, 11:347).
        185  November 10, 1856: Although the MS reads "November 10, 1857" (my emphasis), it should read as I here emend it, for the journal entry for November 10, 1856, is the source from which Thoreau drew this passage (Journal, 9:138).
        185  Perth Amboy: I emend by adding the word "Perth" here. For information on Perth Amboy, see the note above for p. 120.
        185  November 2, 1856: Although the MS reads "November 2, 1857," (my emphasis), it should read as I here emend it, for the journal entry for November 2, 1856, is the source from which Thoreau drew this passage (Journal, 9:137).
        185  Michaux says Quercus … is very fertile: Michaux, 1:47, 51.
        185  Melvin: George Melvin was one of Concord’s ne’er-do-wells who, as Harding points out, "spent all their time hunting and fishing, living their lives from one day to the next andenjoying every minute" (p. 328). As such, Thoreau liked him and referred to him often in his journal.
        185  Assabet River: I add the word "River."
        185  Wood … every third year": William Wood, p. 18. This passage is the last one in Thoreau’s earlier, 188-page draft of Wild Fruits.
        186  wholesome, shining, dark-chestnut color: The MS reads, "wholesome shining dark chestnut (?) color," so the hyphenation is editorially supplied and the query omitted. Note that Thoreau had earlier extracted this passage from his journal as the second extract in the "Acorns Generally" section (see note above to p. 183).
        186  April 29, 1852: Thoreau wrote along the left margin in the MS next to this passage, "or in Dispersion of Seeds," indicating that he had revised this passage for use in The Dispersion of Seeds and that the revised version of this passage could supplant this early version. Rather than use the revised version of the passage here, however, I include it (as well as relevant surrounding passages) in the "The Dispersion of Seeds: Acorns" section of "Related Passages," pp. 249-51.
        186  Sagard … thickened their broth": Sagard, Histoire du Canada, p. 976. The translation is Thoreau’s.
        186  And Trillium: I add the word "Trillium" here.
        186  large red berry: After this line in the MS Thoreau wrote, "Vide two last trips to Monadnock," He had last visited Mount Monadnock on June 2-4, 1858, and August 4-9, 1860 (Journal, 10:452-80 and 14:8-52). While on the first of these two trips he mentioned the trillium in his journal twice, as follows: "There, too, the Trillium erythrocarpum, now in prime, was conspicuous—three white, lanceolate, waved-edged petals with a purple base. This the handsomest flower of the mountain, coextensive with the wooded sides" (entry of June 2, 1858; Journal, 10:454); and "Beneath them [the trees on Monadnock] grew the Trillium pictum and clintonia, both in bloom." (entry of June 4, 1858; Journal, 10:480). He did not mention the trillium at all in his journal during his last trip to Mount Monadnock.
        186  Michaux … food for "red-breasts": Michaux, 3:37.
        187  Gray calls it "blackish-blue": Gray (1848), p. 397.
        187  Staples’s meadow wood: The reference is to Sam Staples, the one-time town constable who locked Thoreau in the Concord Jail for refusal to pay taxes, an incident which occasioned Thoreau’s enormously influential essay "Civil Disobedience," sometimes titled "Resistance to Civil Government."
        187  White Pine [section]: See the later revision of this material in "Related Passages" below, the passage titled "The Dispersion of Seeds: White Pine," pp. 252-56.
        187  handsome grove?: Thoreau identifies this in his journal source as "the white-pine grove behind Beck Stow’s" Swamp (Journal, 7:489).
        188  June 1850 … strewn with: Thoreau wrote these passages vertically in the left margin and did not indicate where he wanted them inserted. I insert them here arbitrarily.
        188  Michaux says open about first of October: Michaux, 3:159.
        188  September 9, 1857… almost entirely: Thoreau transcribed these passages from his journal for use in Wild Fruits, of course, but he then revised them for use (whether simultaneous use or exclusive use, it is not possible to determine at this stage of composition) in The Dispersion of Seeds. In the revision process Thoreau inserted transposition lines and other marks, but I do not here incorporate Thoreau’s revisions as indicated by those marks because he made those marks when revising for The Dispersion of Seeds rather than for Wild Fruits.
        188  Emerson’s Heater-Piece trees: Thoreau’s journal entry of October 8, 1856 (Journal, 9:105), which is the source of this passage, suggests that Emerson’s Heater Piece was just off or near the Cambridge Turnpike near Smith’s Hill. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a "heater-piece" as "a gore or triangular piece of land."
        188  be agreeable to some: Thoreau originally wrote in pencil after this paragraph, "Next perhaps the chestnut." But later he wrote the passage beginning "September 16, 1860" over the pencil and the remaining blank space. It is likely that he considered following this section on white pines with a section on the chestnut when he was drafting this passage for an early draft of The Dispersion of Seeds, where this passage is used. In the draft of The Dispersion of Seeds that Thoreau left at his death, however, the analogous passage about the white-pine cones is followed by a passage on the seeds of the hemlock and larch" (Thoreau, Dispersion of Seeds, pp. 39-40).
        189  cones beneath branches: This word (branches) added. Note that the journal entry for that day contains nothing whatever of this, another of many indications that Thoreau was revising Wild Fruits at this time (Journal, 14:88).
        189  October 29, 1858 … hard to come off: Thoreau put this line in parentheses, which might indicate that he intended to delete it.
        189  How little observed … half a mile distant: In teh Wild Fruits MS containing the early version of this passage (Berg Collection, "Notes on Fruits" folder, leaf paged with accession number 289), Thoreau wrote, "Vide Dispersion [of] Seeds for corrected version," referring to the later revision of this passage in the Berg Collection, "Dispersion of Seeds" folder, leaf paged with accession number 29.  I follow Thoreau's instructions, of course, and use here the later version of this passage from The Dispersion of Seeds MS (see The Dispersion of Seeds, pp. 34 and 35).
        190  Worcester: The second largest city in Massachusetts, about thirty-five miles southwest of Concord. Thoreau visited the city often, for he had several good friends who lived there, most notably Harrison G. O. Blake and Theophilus Brown.
        190  Coombs: Beginning in February 1856 Thoreau mentions Coombs (by his last name only) in his journal a dozen times, all but two times in connection with hunting. In his journal for March 26, 1860, Thoreau approvingly quoted his neighbor and walking companion William Ellery Channing’s description of Coombs as "‘the musquash hunter and partridge and rabbit snarer" (Journal, 13:231).
        190  Found in drill hole: Thoreau queried this assertion in the MS, but see The Dispersion of Seeds, where he writes, "Exploring one of the old limestone quarries in the north part of Concord one November, I noticed in the side of an upright sliver of rock, where the limestone had formerly been blasted off, the bottom of the nearly perpendicular hole which had been drilled for that purpose, two or three inches deep and about two and a half feet from the ground, and in this I found two fresh chestnuts, a dozen or more pea-vine (Amphicarpĉa) seeds, as many apparently of winterberry seeds, and several fresh barberry seeds, all bare seeds or without the pericarp, mixed with a little earth and rubbish" (p. 147).
        190  say September tenth: I add the word "September" here. After this passage in the MS Thoreau wrote, "Vide Dispersion of Seeds—or else Miscellaneous p. 101." He refers to the paragraph that follows in the text, beginning "One September I gathered," the source of which is two MS pages in the Berg Collection, "Dispersion of Seeds" folder, accession numbers 91-92. Thoreau refers in his note to an earlier version of this same paragraph on p. 101 of his 112-page "Miscellaneous" draft, which is in the Berg Collection, "Notes on Fruits" folder, accession number 501.
        190  One September: Thoreau interlined "(18th, 1859)" in the MS here.
        191  Pin-weed: To Thoreau pin-weed, cistus, and lechea are synonymous.
        191  nigrum, September fourteenth: I add "September" here.
        191  Walpole, New Hampshire: From September 10 to 12, 1856, Thoreau visited his friend, the educator Amos Bronson Alcott, in Walpole, which is about twenty-five miles north of the Massachusetts border on the Connecticut River (Journal 9:76-80).
        192  rattle-pod: I add this word on authority of the journal source (Journal, 14:89-90).
        192  Deep Cut: I add the word "Deep." This is Thoreau’s name for the "Deep Cut" dug in 1844 through the small hill northwest of Walden Pond to accommodate the Fitchburg Railroad.
        192  back and found it: I delete from this location the following passage, which Thoreau appears to have tried to revise as he transcribed it from his journal and which he placed in parentheses, probably immediately after he transcribed it, to indicate deletion: "So in the winter (?) I hear the seeds rattling—but more finely in the little black pods of the indigo weed when the wind—and late in the fall I sometimes detect the beans which the farmer has not gathered in some weedy or grassy field—by my feet striking them and causing them to rattle. Perchance these seeds are thus betrayed to those wild creatures that feed on them.)"
        192  when the wind blows: I add the word "blows."
        192  One year … unexpected place: The journal source of this passage is the entry of October 3, 1858 (Journal, 11:194).
        193  ripen September fifteenth: I emend by drawing the date, "September fifteenth," from Thoreau’s interlined note, which reads, "Put this forward to September 15."
        193  amaranth, and so on: Thoreau first wrote "Roman wormwood and chenopodium" but later interlined "—Amaranth and so on" after "chenopodium," so I emend by standardizing the parallel construction.
        193  hundreds of sparrows: Thoreau wrote "(chip-birds?)" in the MS following this phrase.
        194  Springer … fifty feet in air": Springer, p. 28. Thoreau identifies his source in the MS as "Common Place Book 1, p. 15."
        194  Red beech ripe … according to Michaux: Michaux, 3:26.
        194  Hips of rose: I emend by adding the word "rose."
        194  December 14, 1850 … thick as winterberries: Thoreau wrote immediately after this sentence, "(What kind?)" Later he wrote next to this query, "V[ide] same side other rose," a reference to his section on "Early Rose," where he expresses the same difficulty he has here of distinguishing the early from the late rose (see the note above to p. 126).
        195  Loudon … food of bears": Loudon, 2:1123.
        195  a woman on Cape Cod … better than cherries: Thoreau wrote in his journal entry for June 20, 1857, when he was visiting the Highland Light and surrounding area in Truro, Massachusetts, on the Atlantic side of Cape Cod, just south of Provincetown, "Talked with an old lady who thought that the beach plums were better than cherries" (Journal, 9:446).
        196  cornuti, September sixteenth: Thoreau wrote in the MS after this sentence, "Vide Dispersion [of] Seeds," referring to the text on six MS pages in folder titled "Dispersion of Seeds" at the Berg Collection, accession numbers 209-12, 214-15, which is the source of the remaining text in this section (The Dispersion of Seeds, pp. 90-94).
        196  it in the air even in the spring.): Thoreau originally wrote the sentence this way, but in revising for The Dispersion of Seeds he changed "it" to "one kind," a change that I reverse here because "one kind" only makes sense within the context of The Dispersion of Seeds. Also, after "spring" Thoreau interlined in the MS here "? (March 20, 1853)," referring to his journal source for this observation.
        196  stem like a flourish: I emend by deleting the following four sentences, which follow here in the MS but which are only relevant within the larger context (milkweeds generally, as opposed to Asclepias cornuti) of The Dispersion of Seeds: "The wavy-leaved has slender pods. It is perfectly upright and five inches long. The water milkweed, whose down I begin to see about the 4th of October (1856), has small, slender, straight, and pointed pods—perfectly upright—and large seeds with much margin or wing. But to confine ourselves to the Asclepias cornuti."
        196  inside and out, its pod: Because I deleted the preceding four sentences from the MS (see preceding note), I further emend by moving "Its pod" from the front of this sentence in the MS to this location. My only reason for emending here, however, is stylistic: the preceding sentence here begins "Its pods"; having this sentence also begin "Its pod" would be a stylistic injustice I feel confident Thoreau would not want me to commit.
        196  steel-yard poire): The Oxford English Dictionary does not list "poire," which is French for "pear." However, Thoreau refers in the "Pears" section above to "poire" as a pear-shaped object, presumably a weight, used by a "weigher." I italicize the word on the presumption that it is a foreign word.
        197  One of my neighbors: I have been unable to identify this person.
        197  attic window: From 1850 until his death in May 1862 Thoreau lived in the attic of his parents’ house on Main Street in Concord. His writing desk was in front of the two windows on the western side of the room.
        197  end of September: Thoreau interlined "(20th, 1860)" in the MS here.
        197  I notice: I delete "(August 26, 1860)" from the beginning of this sentence.
        197  one afternoon: Thoreau interlined "(September 24, 1857)" in the MS here.
        197  meadow on Clematis Brook: Thoreau interlined in the MS here "(near the deserted Abel Minott house)."
        197  now point upward: Thoreau interlined in the MS here "(Did they before point down?)."
        198  Mr. Lauriat: According to Crouch, pp. 191-96, Louis Anselm Lauriat emigrated from the French West Indies to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1806. In Boston on July 17, 1835, the 49-year-old Lauriat made the first of nearly fifty ascents in a balloon, the last ascent occurring in 1848. He died ten years later in Sacramento, California.
        198  prophecies of Daniel or of Miller: The apocalyptic visions or prophecies of the prophet Daniel are recorded in the Old Testament, Book of Daniel, chs. 7-12. William Miller (1782-1849), whose followers were known as Millerites, founded the Adventist movement in the United States during the 1840s and predicted that the Second Coming of Christ would take place on March 21, 1844.
        198  end of November: Thoreau interlined "(22d, 1857)" in the MS here.
        199  Hieracium down. September eighteenth: Thoreau wrote in the margin of the MS beside this phrase, "Vide Dispersion of Seeds," referring to the paragraph that follows here, which is derived from a single MS in the folder titled "Dispersion of Seeds" in the Berg Collection, accession number 216 (The Dispersion of Seeds, p. 94).
        199  eighteenth of September: Thoreau interlined "(1860)" in the MS here..
        200  December 14, 1850: At the top of the MS page that begins with this phrase (Berg Collection, "Notes on Fruits" folder, accession number 251), Thoreau wrote, "Sweet Gale September 1" and "September 22, 1860. Is yet green, but perhaps it is ripe." Then he deleted the "1" after "September," wrote "22" in its stead, and interlined "Move this forward to September 22." I emend by deleting all of these passages as redundant vestiges of Thoreau’s composition process.
        200  August 28, 1859. … begin to yellow: I emend by putting the date before the passage here.
        200  Assabet River: I add the word "River."
        200  Gerarde … full of small flowers": Gerarde, p. 1414. Thoreau adds the word "many" here.
        200  last of September: Thoreau interlined "(21st, 1860)" in the MS here, but his journal source was actually the entry of 22 September 1860.
        201  It is said … part of their supply": Knapp, p. 118.
        201  This appears … (oxydendron) of the South: Cutler, p. 443. I have not been able to locate the "recent Systema Naturĉ" Thoreau refers to.
        201  Lespedeza, September twenty-fifth: Thoreau wrote in the MS here and then deleted "September 25, 1860," and beside that deleted date he wrote, "Put here." It is unclear what he intended to place here. Perhaps somewhere in his late natural history manuscripts is a scrap with material about the lespedza. In any case, nowhere in his journal for September 1860 does he mention this plant.
        202  My sister saw much in Princeton: I emend by replacing "Sophia" in the MS with "My sister," which would conform with Thoreau’s practice of not using proper names of individuals in his published writings. Sophia had visited her friend Dora (Swift) Foster in East Princeton, Massachusetts, about thirty-five miles west of Concord.
        202  Leaves not fallen … by their greenness: Expanded from Thoreau’s MS note, "Leaves not fallen &c &c." I derived the words after "fallen" here from Thoreau’s manuscript journal entry of September 24, 1859 (Journal, 12:351).
        202  as they will be: Thoreau wrote after this sentence, "Vide perhaps making tallow in New Bedford." From April 2 to April 15, 1857, Thoreau visited his friend Daniel Ricketson in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a coastal city sixty miles south of Concord. While there he write the following passages in his journal about making bayberry tallow:

        [From entry of April 7, 1857 (Journal, 9:320)] At sundown I went out to gather bayberries to make tallow of. Holding a basket beneath, I rubbed them off into it between my hands, and so got about a quart, to which were added enough to make about three pints. They are interesting little gray berries clustered close about the short bare twigs, just below the last year’s growth. The berries have little prominences, like those of an orange, encased with tallow, the tallow also filling the interstices, down to the nut.
        They require a great deal of boiling to get out all the tallow. The outmost case soon melted off, but the inmost part I did not get even after many hours of boiling. The oily part rose to the top, making it look like a savory black broth, which smelled just like balm or other herb tea. I got about a quarter of a pound by weight from these say three pints of berries, and more yet remained. Boil a great while, let it cool, then skim off the tallow from the surface; melt again and strain it. What I got was more yellow than what I have seen in the shops. A small portion cooled in the form of small corns ("nuggets" I called them when I picked them out from amid the berries)—flat, hemispherical, of a very pure lemon yellow—and these needed no straining. The berries were left black and massed together by the remaining tallow.
        [From entry of April 8, 1857 (Journal, 9:321)] I discovered one convenient use the bayberries served: that if you got your hands pitched in pine woods, you had only to rub a parcel of these berries between your hands to start the pitch off. Arthur [Ricketson’s son] said the shoemakers at the Head of the River used the tallow to rub the soles of their shoes with to make them shine. I gathered a quart in about twenty minutes with my hands. You might gather them much faster with a suitable rake and a large, shallow basket, or if one were clearing a field he could cut the bushes and thresh them in a heap.

Thoreau used these entries as the basis for the first paragraph of his chapter "VI. The Beach Again" in Cape Cod, pp. 80-81. The first four chapters of Cape Cod were published serially in 1855, but the full book (including the bayberry-tallow paragraph below) was posthumously published in 1865. The paragraph reads:

        Our way to the high sand-bank, which I have described as extending all along the coast, led, as usual, through patches of Bayberry bushes, which straggled into the sand. This, next to the Shrub-oak, was perhaps the most common shrub thereabouts. I was much attracted by its odoriferous leaves and small gray berries which are clustered about the short twigs, just below the last year’s growth. I know of but two bushes in Concord, and they, being staminate plants, do not bear fruit. The berries gave it a venerable appearance, and they smelled quite spicy, like small confectionery. Robert Beverley, in his "History of Virginia," published in 1705, states that "at the mouth of their rivers, and all along upon the sea and bay, and near many of their creeks and swamps, grows the myrtle, bearing a berry, of which they make a hard brittle wax, of a curious green color, which by refining becomes almost transparent. Of this they make candles, which are never greasy to the touch nor melt with lying in the hottest weather; neither does the snuff of these ever offend the smell, like that of a tallow candle; but, instead of being disagreeable, if an accident puts a candle out, it yields a pleasant fragrancy to all that are in the room; insomuch that nice people often put them out on purpose to have the incense of the expiring snuff. The melting of these berries is said to have been first found out by a surgeon in New England, who performed wonderful things with a salve made of them." From the abundance of berries still hanging on the bushes, we judged that the inhabitants did not generally collect them for tallow, though we had seen a piece in the house we had just left. I have since made some tallow myself. Holding a basket beneath the bare twigs in April, I rubbed them together between my hands and thus gathered about a quart in twenty minutes, to which were added enough to make three pints, and I might have gathered them much faster with a suitable rake and a large shallow basket. They have little prominences like those of an orange all encased in tallow, which also fills the interstices down to the stone. The oily part rose to the top, making it look like a savory black broth, which smelled much like balm or other herb tea. You let it cool, then skim off the tallow from the surface, melt this again and strain it. I got about a quarter of a pound weight from my three pints, and more yet remained within the berries. A small portion cooled in the form of small flattish hemispheres, like crystallizations, the size of a kernel of corn (nuggets I called them as I picked them out from amid the berries). Loudon says, that "cultivated trees are said to yield more wax than those that are found wild." (See Duplessy, Végétaux Résineux, Vol. II. p. 60.) If you get any pitch on your hands in the pine-woods you have only to rub some of these berries between your hands to start it off. But the ocean was the grand fact there, which made us forget both bayberries and men.

        202  Bigelow … innocent in their effects": Bigelow, American Medical Botany, 2:xiii. Thoreau silently omits Bigelow’s "of plants" after "other natural families" in the final sentence. He also used this quotation at the end of one of the beginnings of Wild Fruits (see the end of "Wild Fruits" section in "Related Passages," p. 244, and the note below for p. 244).
        202  umbelliferous aquatics: Thoreau underscored these two word in MS and spelled the former "umbiliferous," both of which anomalies I correct by restoring to the source (see previous note).
        203  Michaux says about October first: Michaux, 3:103.
        204  Corn, October first: Thoreau wrote in the MS here, "Vide October 7, and September 18, 1860" and "Harvest home Vide Common Place Book 2, p. 174." The first of these notes refers to two passages that Thoreau transcribed from his journal onto a separate MS page and added to the larger Wild Fruits MS; those passages appear in their turn (where Thoreau placed them) later in the "Corn" section. The second note, about "Harvest home," refers to a long passage that Thoreau had transcribed into "Common Place Book 2," pp. 174-76 from Brand and that Thoreau clearly planned to insert at some location in the "Corn" section; lacking any indication where he wanted that passage inserted, I have placed it at the end of the "Corn" section.
        204  Early in August: Thoreau wrote in the MS after this phrase, "(11th, 1852)."
        205  my father: John Thoreau, who had died peacefully at his Main Street home in Concord, Massachusetts, on February 3, 1859, with his family gathered around him, including Thoreau, who wrote an eloquent tribute to his father in his journal of that date (Journal, 11:435-437).
        205  Gerarde says … swine than for men: Gerarde, pp. 82, 83.
        205  stalk be a span long: After this clause in the MS Thoreau wrote "(branches of sterile part)," which are not in Gerarde and which Thoreau may have intended to be a bracketed comment. I omit the phrase from the text.
        205  Lindley quotes … America of Maize": Lindley, pp. 376, 377. Thoreau wrote at the top of the scrap this quotation appears on, "under corn," with no other indication of its placement, so its placement here is somewhat arbitrary.
        206  Brand in his Popular … brought home every load: Brand, 2:16-17, 20, 28, 34. For the placement of this passage here, see the note above to p. 204 above. In "Common Place Book 2," pp. 174-176, the source of this passage, Thoreau wrote the title "Harvest Home" on p. 174 and transcribed the passage from Brand with no introduction, so the introductory clause ("Brand in his Popular Antiquities describes ‘Harvest Home’") before the offset quotation is my own, although Thoreau did ascribe his extracts to "Brand’s Popular Antiquities" on p. 173 of "Common Place Book 2."
        207  October 27, 1856. At Perth Amboy … scarlet leaves: I emend by placing the date at the beginning rather than the end of this sentence and by adding "Perth." For information on Perth Amboy, see the note above for p. 120.
        208   Pliny … for their fragrance): Pliny, Historiĉ Mundi, Book 15, Ch. 10. The translation is Thoreau’s.
        208  November 10, 1856: Emended from "November 10, 1857" in the MS; see journal source in entry of November 10, 1856 (Journal, 9:137).
        208  Perth Amboy: For information on Perth Amboy, see the note above for p. 120.
        208  ticks in the fields: I emend by deleting "there" after "fields," where it is redundant.
        208  October 28, 1860. This … one this year: I emend by moving "October 28, 1860" from the end of this sentence, where Thoreau had written it within parentheses, to the front of the sentence.
        209  Michaux … violet colored instead of green": Michaux, 3:215.
        211  packed in a little chest: Thoreau wrote "Nuts placed in the bark—Vide March 7, 1859" in the MS here, referring to the passage from his journal entry for that date, which I insert into the MS after this passage (Journal, 12:20).
        211  jar down many nuts: I emend by omitting "yet" from the end of this sentence, where it is redundant.
        213  not only are squirrels: I derive the words "only are" here from the journal source of this passage (Journal, 9:147).
        213  Loudon quotes Pliny … any other manner": Loudon, 3:1897.
        213  Evelyn says, referring … beans to boot": Thoreau’s source here is actually Loudon, 3:1994.
        213  In France, according … for immediate use.…": Loudon, 3:1995. A "sabot" is a wooden shoe or clog worn of old in France and other European countries. The word "sabotage" (etymologically, from saboter, "to clatter with sabots") is derived from this word.
        213  Minott tells … near Flint’s Pond: The sense of this sentence is difficult because Thoreau used the first "near" in its somewhat rare adverbial sense, as in "finding nearly a bushel." I do not emend this usage because Thoreau employs it in his journal source as well as here (entry of September 24, 1857; Journal, 10:41).
        213  It has gaped: After "gaped" in the MS Thoreau wrote "(open)."
        214  infant in the arms: Before "arms" Thoreau had written "brawny," but he later enclosed the word in parentheses to indicate deletion.
        215  skin enwraps the meat: Thoreau wrote at the end of this sentence "(with its germ)."
        215  successive concentric circles: Thoreau wrote at the end of this sentence, "(around the tree)."
        216  I hear the dull thump of heavy stones: Thoreau originally began this sentence "I hear from time to time the dull thump of heavy stones cast," but he later enclosed "from time to time" and "cast" in parentheses to indicate deletion.
        216  One of the company … half a bushel: Thoreau suggests in the journal source to this passage (Journal, 10:173) that he was surveying for Stedman Buttrick and Mr. Gordon when this story was related to him. He also relates a story told him by Jacob Farmer, who was no doubt one of the "company" that day.
        216  Loudon, New Hampshire. First and frequently: Loudon, New Hampshire, is seven miles northeast of Concord, New Hampshire. Apparently Thoreau means by "First and frequently" that he saw the chestnut when he first entered Loudon on the evening of July 3, 1858, and saw it frequently thereafter during his visit (Journal, 11:6).
        216  Josselyn says … twelve pence per bushel: Josselyn, New-Englands Rarieties Discovered, p. 51.
        216  Gathered a few chestnuts: After this passage in the MS, Thoreau wrote "q.v." (quod vide or "which see"), referring to the remainder of the journal passage he had begun with the words "Gathered a few chestnuts." I add hereafter the text referred to, but Thoreau may have meant to include as well (after "and so do a service" in the text) the one-sentence paragraph that follows in the journal source: "I find whitish grubs stretching themselves under the moist chestnut leaves, but they were in the same state in January" (Journal, 5:9).
        216  Sophia’s: Thoreau’s younger sister.
        216  March 20, 1853: After this date in the MS, Thoreau wrote, "q.v. [quod vide or "which see"] p. 26 and 15," referring to passages on those two pages in his MS journal. The first passage referred to, page 26, follows in the text because it is clear that is the passage Thoreau refers to. Page 15 of the same journal volume, however, actually contains the following material from his entry of March 18, 1853—material which has nothing to do with chestnuts and does not seem relevant to the context Thoreau has established in his text:

        The season is so far advanced that the sun—every now and then promising to shine out through this rather warm rain, lighting up transiently with a whiter light the dark day and my dark chamber—affects me as I have not been affected for a long time. I must go forth.
        Afternoon to Conantum.
        I find it unexpectedly mild; it appears to be clearing up, but will be wet underfoot. Now, then, spring is beginning again in earnest after this short check. Is it not always thus? Is there not always an early promise of spring, something answering to the Indian summer which succeeds the true summer, so an Indian or false spring preceding the true spring? A first false promise, which merely excites our expectations to disappoint them, followed by a short return of winter. Yet all things appear to have made progress even during true wintry days, for I cannot believe that they have thus instantaneously taken a start.

        216  Walnuts, October thirteenth: Thoreau originally wrote "15" in the MS here and then reformed the "15" to "13." Although this reformation is not immediately apparent in the MS (the "5" still looks very much like a "5"), the placement of the MS page within the sequence of pages in the "Notes on Fruits" folder supports the change from "15" to "13."
        216  the hill: The journal source makes it clear that Nawshawtuct Hill is meant here (Journal, 4:32).
        217  shell. The walnuts: After "walnuts" Thoreau wrote "(pignuts?)."
        217  with their fine … reproving the while): After the passage ending here, Thoreau interlined the note "(Vide perhaps for nuts gnawed and Buster Kendal)," referring to the remainder of this paragraph in the journal source (entry of November 1, 1853; Journal, 5:471), which reads as follows: "It is not true, as I noticed today, that squirrels never gnaw an imperfect and worthless nut. Many years ago I came here nutting with some boys who came to school to me; one of them climbed daringly to the top of a tall walnut to shake. He had got the nickname of Buster for similar exploits, so that some thought he was christened so. It was a true Indian name earned for once." Concord Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 319, lists the birth on March 16, 1829, of Henry Kendall, who was a student of Thoreau’s at the Concord Academy. Thoreau and his brother John, Jr., operated the Concord Academy from the summer of 1838 until the spring of 1841 (Harding, pp. 75-87).
        219  December 16, 1856. Mrs. Moody: I emend the MS from December "14" because Thoreau’s source is actually December 16. The Mrs. Moody that Thoreau refers to has not been identified but may have been the wife of George Barrell Moody, a classmate of Emerson’s at Harvard College.
        219  Michaux says that … round, some oblong: Michaux, 1:178.
        219  Michaux says the … others are perfectly round": Michaux, 1:196.
        221  Asnebumskit Hill … except Wachusett: At 1,395 feet, Asnebumskit Hill in Paxton, four miles northwest of the city of Worcester, is indeed the second highest land in Worcester County, which spans the breadth of central Massachusetts. For Wachusett, see the note above to p. 22 ("Many years ago").
        221  March 6: I add the word "March" here.
        221  Viola Muhlenbergii Brook: I add the word "Viola" here. Thoreau variously called this brook "Viola Muhlenbergii Brook," "V. Muhlenbergii Brook" and simply "Muhlenbergii Brook."
        222  Loudon … seedling plants of Kalmia latifolia": Loudon, 2:1125.
        222  August 19, 1852. They never bloom: Thoreau inserted the date and journal extract beginning here sometime after write the one following, which has the same date.
        223  According to Bigelow … lobata, and in birches: Bigelow, American Medical Botany, 2:30. Thoreau originally wrote "and the root of Spirĉa lobata" and ended the sentence there, but he later changed the period to a comma and added "and in birches." So I emend both by deleting "and" and adding "in" before "the root."
        223  Manasseh Cutler … children in milk": Cutler, p. 444.
        223  as September fourteenth: After this phrase Thoreau wrote "(1859)."
        223  flavor, and perchance: Thoreau at first wrote these words as they are here, but he then interlined "now" after "and." He then enclosed "now" in parentheses, which I interpret as indicating deletion.
        223  This season: I emend by omitting "October 3, 1859" from the beginning of this paragraph.
        223  ripens within the tropics: Here Thoreau interlined the intriguing sentence, "Vide perhaps more elsewhere in Wild," which almost certainly means he considered incorporating into this location one or more passages from his lecture manuscript "Walking, or the Wild," which was not published until after his death as the essay "Walking," the last half of which is on "The Wild" and which contains one of his most famous statements: "in Wildness is the preservation of the World." I have found no indication of what material from the last half of Thoreau’s lecture he may have considered using in this location.
        224  middle of a frozen barrel: Thoreau wrote after this paragraph, "Vide p. 85 and p. 51 on Frost," but a check of both his journal volumes for the October 1857 and October 1859 periods turns up no passages relating to frost. 
        224  Harvest Days: Although the nature of this holiday period seems clear from the context, as well as the fact that it was a holiday, I have not been able to locate a specific reference to the period as a holiday.
        224  walnut, October fifteenth: Thoreau wrote "Vide last page" after this heading, referring to the passages in this section, which are all on another single MS page.
        224  size of a small lemon’s: I delete from this location Thoreau’s comment "(R. Rice says these are his brother Israel’s)."
        224  Gray says it … Western states: Gray (1848), p. 411.
        224  Emerson says that … found in Massachusetts: Emerson, Report on Trees, p. 185.
        224  Michaux says our … is more round: Michaux, 1:158, writes, "Though differing widely from the European species [European walnut], [the black walnut] bears a nearer resemblance to it than any other American Walnut."
        225  Shagbark, October twentieth: After this passage in the MS Thoreau wrote, "Vide last page but one," which refers to passages about shagbark hickories on the MS leaf paged with accession numbers 259-60 in the Berg Collection's "Notes on Fruits" folder. I follow Thoreau's instruction by inserting those passages here.  However, one of those passages is dated December 18, 1856, and immediately following the note ("Vide last page but one") Thoreau transcribed from his journal of that same date another passage, also on shagbark hickories.  Both of these passages dated December 18, 1856, are one sentence in length.  I emend by inserting the second of these passages into the MS directly after the first of these two passages.
        225  Shagbarks hanging: I emend by deleting "December 18, 1856" from before these words as redundant.
        225  Souhegan River: The word "River" added. Thoreau traveled in a buggy along the Souhegan River on his way to Amherst, in south-central New Hampshire, on December 18, 1856, to deliver a lecture in the Congregational Church there.
        225  Wachusett): See the note above to p. 22 ("Many years ago").
        225  Gookin … artichokes in their pottage: Gooking, p. 10.
        225  Hind … in the richest profusion: Hind, Rapport sur L’Exploration, pp. 44-47. In "Common Place Book 2," p. 202, Thoreau wrote, "Hind is translated, ‘The earth is covered with the richest profusion [he is on Rainy River] of [among other plants] … de topinambours (artichauts de Jérusalem)." French topinambours are Jerusalem artichokes in English. After "profusion" in the Wild Fruits MS Thoreau wrote, "Vide perhaps my extract from Gerarde" and "Vide perhaps Common Place Book 2, p. 202." The second note refers to the Hind passage just quoted. The first note, on Gerarde, apparently refers to an unlocated MS containing an extract from Gerarde’s fairly brief chapter on artichokes, Gerarde, pp. 1152-54.
        226  Boxboro and Cambridge: Boxboro, Massachusetts, is about nine miles west of Concord Center, on the other side of Acton, and Cambridge is about fifteen miles east of Concord, just across the Charles River from Boston.
        226  black-birch scale: Thoreau wrote in the MS here, "(?) (not white)."
        226  little antennĉ: At the bottom of the MS page that ends here, Thoreau wrote the following notes: "Vide Dispersion of Seeds of March 2, 1856,. that is, Behind Pritchard and Loudon extracts," and "Potatoes—corn and turnips not quite all gathered November 15, 1856." I incorporate into the text here the two specific passages from The Dispersion of Seeds that Thoreau refers to in these notes (Berg Collection, "Dispersion of Seeds" folder, accession numbers 143-44 and 147, 149; see The Dispersion of Seeds, pp. 44 and 46, 46-47) and, for the sake of comparison, include Thoreau’s analogous section on birches from The Dispersion of Seeds in "Related Passages," pp. 257-62.
        226  Mr. Prichard’s land: Moses Prichard lived on Main Street in Concord, but Thoreau doubtless refers to land elsewhere owned by Prichard. .
        227  It is stated in … blank that occurs": Loudon, 3:1691, 1694, 1696. Peter Simon Pallas was a well-known Russian botanist, and Loudon identifies the French author only as "the author of the article Bouleau, in the Dictionnaire des Eaux et Forêts."
        227  Cape Cod man … delivered at New York: Captain Edward W. Gardiner of Nantucket Island was Thoreau’s host when Thoreau visited the island to deliver a lecture before the Nantucket Athenĉum on December 27-28, 1854. Gardiner’s avocation was the reforestation of the island, a subject he and Thoreau discussed at length during Thoreau’s brief visit. At the end of this passage in the MS Thoreau interlined several notes, all of which he later deleted (probably after transcribing the passages he lists) except one, which reads, ""V[ide] extract from Loudon." I feel confident that the Loudon extract he refers to is the quotation he uses at the beginning of the section on the pitch pine, just after the exordium of The Dispersion of Seeds, p. 24 (begins "It is related that ‘when Vatinius’"; see "Related Passages," pp. 262-63).
        228  persistent are they: Thoreau wrote at this point in the MS, "Vide Pliny’s name for them," a reference to Pliny, Historiĉ Mundi, Book 16, Ch. 44, where Pliny names them "azaniĉ," which the translators, Bostock and Riley, say in a footnote means "‘Dried’ nuts" (3:385n11). Thoreau uses this word, "azaniĉ," near the beginning of The Dispersion of Seeds, p. 25.
        228  Michaux … closed for several years": Michaux, 3:151-152.
        229  regularly at the seeds: I emend by omitting the following passage that follows "seeds" in the MS here and that clearly represents Thoreau’s extemporaneous attempt to compose one sentence in the midst of transcribing another from his journal: "(If we bungle art a boiled ear of corn—asking a knife to aid us—what think you of a family of young squirrels with each a rigid pitch pine—cone in its paws—not boiled nor salted & no knife)." Later, after this attempt, Thoreau revised this material and was more successful with expressing the idea he attempted here (see "Related Passages," p. 268, "The close-shaven cone … produce with a knife.").
        229  seventh of this month: Where the words "of this month" appear here, Thoreau actually wrote "ult." (for "ultimo," which is from the Latin for "before" and was often used during Thoreau’s time to mean "last month"). Thoreau regularly used "ult." when he obviously meant "inst." (for "instant," or "this month"). I emend by correcting Thoreau’s common error, expanding the Latinate abbreviation to its plain-English equivalent ("this month"), and adding the preposition "of."
        229  relaxed in every part: Thoreau wrote in the MS after these words, "Vide scales blown across Walden—in Dispersion [of] Seeds," which I interpret to mean that he wanted the relevant passage from The Dispersion of Seeds inserted at his location in Wild Fruits. My source for the next two paragraphs (from "Unlike the white pine" to heaving of the frozen shore") is two MS pages in the Berg Collection, "Dispersion of Seeds" folder, accession numbers 12-13 (also see The Dispersion of Seeds, pp. 27-28).
        230  one of our ponds: Identified from the journal source of the next paragraph (entry of July 20, 1860) as Walden Pond.
        230  middle of July: Thoreau interlined "(July 20, 1860)" in the MS here.
        231  curving rays: Thoreau wrote at this point in his MS, "Vide Miscellaneous January 24, 1855," which is a reference to the passage from William Wood that follows in the MS on a separate page. Thoreau also wrote a draft of this passage on page 52 of his 112-page "Miscellaneous" draft MS in the Berg Collection ("Notes on Fruits" folder, accession number 379).
        231  how the primitive wood … Charles River] side": Wood, p. 57. I add from Thoreau’s journal entry of January 24, 1855 (Journal, 7:132), the words "to William Wood, the author of New England’s Prospect, who left New England August fifteenth 1633." On page 52 of his "Miscellaneous" draft (see preceding note) Thoreau had added the following introductory passages before quoting Wood: "From William Wood, New England’s Propsect. (He left New England in 1633.)"
        232  Pliny … communis of Linnĉus) in must: Pliny, Historiĉ Mundi, Book 14, Ch. 19 (Bohn edition, Natural History, 3:260n81).
        232  Loudon … gin"—that is, to flavor it: Loudon, 4:2491, 2493.
        233  a man: Thoreau refers here to John LeGrosse, whom he surveyed for on January 11 and 12, 1853, and whom Thoreau alluded to in the "Black Huckleberry" section when he said that he had surveyed for a man who neglected to pay for the surveying—or paid only with a quart of red huckleberries (see p. 39 above). Thoreau wrote of LeGrosse in his journal entry of these dates, "This man is continually drinking cider; thinks it corrects some mistake in him; wishes he had a barrel of it in the woods; if he had known he was to be out so long would have brought a jugful; will dun Capt. Hutchinson for a drink on his way home. This, or rum, runs in his head, if not in his throat, all the time. Is interested in juniper berries, gooseberries, currants, etc., whether they will make wine; has recipes for this. Eats the juniper berries raw as he walks" (Journal, 4:462-63).
        233  White Mountains: A range of mountains in northern New Hampshire, extending into Maine, and a popular vacation spot in Thoreau’s time because the area was within a day’s train ride from Boston and other metropolitan areas in southern New England.
        233  I visited … its noble oak wood: On October 23, 1860, as Thoreau points out in his journal, neighbor Anthony Wright told him "of a noted large and so-called primitive wood, Inches Wood, between the Harvard turnpike and Stow, sometimes called Stow Woods, in Boxboro and Stow" (Journal, 14:167). Thoreau visited Inches Wood on November 9 and 16, 1860.
        234  to shoot squirrels in it: In The Dispersion of Seeds, p. 135: "I visited last fall the three principal old oak woods in this vicinity, or that I know of within eight or ten miles, and found accidentally that these were such peculiar resorts for the gray squirrel that several with whom I talked supposed that I had come after these squirrels, and one was able to give me some information about the most distant and interesting wood because he had been accustomed to go there formerly to hunt gray squirrels." The "one" who told Thoreau about the interesting wood (Inches Wood) was Anthony Wright (see preceding note).
        234  a very brief historical notice … buried in this place": Gardner, p. 83-84. I emend the MS spelling from "Gardiner" to "Gardner" and restore the word "the" in the expression "I am of the mind" on authority of Gardner and Thoreau’s journal source (entry of November 26, 1860; Journal, 14:274-75), which has the correct spelling of "Gardner" and which also has "the" in the aforementioned expression. Thoreau transcribed correctly from Gardner to his journal but made these two errors when transcribing from his journal to the Wild Fruits MS. Gardner’s predecessor in the ministry was John Eveleth, Gardner "was ordained to the pastoral office" in Stow on November 26, 1718, and John Green had been "captain of the guard at the king’s dock-yard at Deptford" as well as Cromwell’s clerk of the exchequer (pp. 83-84). In 1660, with the Restoration of the monarchy after the English Civil Wars, the English Parliament passed the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, which granted general amnesty to all citizens who had acted against Charles II except those listed in the Act as supporters of the Cromwellian regicides, who were excluded from the Act and therefore liable to prosecution.
        234  a young man … was still standing: I have located no information on who this young man may have been.
        234  still standing. Around … is interesting or not: After "still standing," which originally ended the paragraph it is part of, Thoreau interlined in pencil the sentence "Around this all the materials of this history were to arrange themselves." At that time he also wrote in the margin of the MS here, "Vide March 18th, 1861," which refers to the paragraph in the text beginning "You can’t read any genuine history." When selecting this material from his MS journal, I was mindful of a vertical use mark Thoreau had drawn through the material, a clear indication that only the material I present here from his journal (from "You can’t read" to "interesting or not") should be incorporated into the text of Wild Fruits. I point this out because at the end of the journal version of this paragraph are the following fascinating sentences: "You are simply a witness on the stand to tell what you know about your neighbors and neighborhood. Your account of foreign parts which you have never seen should by good rights be less interesting" (Journal, 14: 330).
        234  Herodotus or the Venerable Bede: Saint Bede the Venerable was an Anglo-Saxon historian and the author of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which records events in Britain from the Roman incursions of 55 B.C. to the arrival of St. Augustine in A.D. 597. Herodotus was a Greek historian and the author of History, which records the events leading to Greece’s twenty-year war with Persia (499-479 B.C.), as well as the events of the war itself.
        235  I have since heard … tax now than it would then: See the note above to p. 233 ("I visited").
        235  the people of Massachusetts … professorship of Natural History: Dupree points out that "A group of leading Boston citizens in 1805 founded the Massachusetts Professorship of Natural History.… While linked with [Harvard] college, the establishment was a community project" (p. 104).
        236  "freedom to worship God," as some assure us: The First Amendement to the U.S. Constitution reads in part, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.…"
        236  New Hampshire courts … took formal possession: I have not been able to locate any report about this incident.  
        238  commence our museum … British soldier in 1775: In a telephone call on October 7, 1998, David WoodCurator of the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts, informed me that Thoreau gave Cummins Davis, the founder of the Concord Museum, such a cartridge box.
        238  salvages: The Oxford English Dictionary points out that this word is an archaic form of "savage"; Thoreau uses it, of course, to point to the Latin etymology of the word, silva, which means "wood" or "forest."
        238  through a waste … Darien Grounds: Darien Grounds was the name for the Atlantic shelf east of the Isthmus of Darien, now called the Isthmus of Panama. The area had a bad reputation for barrenness among New England mariners who were short of supplies on their returns from the Pacific Ocean. Thoreau originally wrote "through a waste ocean or in a northern desert," but later he interlined "the Darien Grounds" without altering the preposition, "in," which I here emend to "on." Also, after "Darien Grounds" Thoreau had written, "and so die of ship-fever and scurvy. Some will die of ship-fever and scurvy in an Illinois prairie, they lead such stifled and scurvy lives." Later, he enclosed this passage in parentheses, which I interpret to mean that he wished the passage deleted.
        239  saves at the spile and wastes at the bung: A popular, somewhat homely expression whose meaning is clear if one understands that a barrel is filled through a bung-hole, which is stoppered with a bung and is usually located in the center of the upright barrel, and that one uses the contents of a barrel by drawing small amounts out of the spile, a spigot usually located at the bottom of the upright barrel. Hence, to conserve or preserve a resource in one way and squander or despoil that same resource in another manner, which is foolishness.

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