DS

The labourer working all the year round in the open air cannot but note to
some degree those changes in tree and plant which coincide with the
variations of his daily employment. Early in March, as he walks along the
southern side of the hedge, where the dead oak leaves still cumber the
trailing ivy, he can scarcely avoid seeing that pointed tongues of green
are pushing up. Some have widened into black-spotted leaves; some are
notched like the many-barbed bone harpoons of savage races. The hardy
docks are showing, and the young nettles have risen up. Slowly the dark
and grey hues of winter are yielding to the lively tints of spring. The
blackthorn has white buds on its lesser branches, and the warm rays of the
sun have drawn forth the buds on one favoured hawthorn in a sheltered
nook, so that the green of the coming leaf is visible. Bramble bushes
still retain their forlorn, shrivelled foliage; the hardy all but
evergreen leaves can stand cold, but when biting winds from the north and
east blow for weeks together even these curl at the edge and die.

The remarkable power of wind upon leaves is sometimes seen in May, when a
strong gale, even from the west, will so beat and batter the tender
horse-chestnut sprays that they bruise and blacken. The slow plough
traverses the earth, and the white dust rises from the road and drifts
into the field. In winter the distant copse seemed black; now it appears
of a dull reddish brown from the innumerable catkins and buds. The
delicate sprays of the birch are fringed with them, the aspen has a load
of brown, there are green catkins on the bare hazel boughs, and the
willows have white 'pussy-cats.' The horse-chestnut buds--the hue of dark
varnish--have enlarged, and stick to the finger if touched; some are so
swollen as to nearly burst and let the green appear. Already it is
becoming more difficult to look right through the copse. In winter the
light could be seen on the other side; now catkin, bud, and opening leaf
have thickened and check the view. The same effect was produced not long
since by the rime on the branches in the frosty mornings; while each
smallest twig was thus lined with crystal it was not possible to see
through. Tangled weeds float down the brook, catching against projecting
branches that dip into the stream, or slowly rotating and carried
apparently up the current by the eddy and back-water behind the bridge. In
the pond the frogs have congregated in great n