Abundant by Riverside

Dan Mullen: Nodding Beggartick, 2009 (CC)

by Henry D. Thoreau

Sept 19. Perambulated Carlisle line.

Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside. Found the bound stones on Carlisle by the river all or mostly tipped over by the ice and water, like the pitch pines about Walden Pond. Grapes very abundant along that line. The soapwort gentian now. In an old pasture, now grown up to birches and other trees, followed the cow-paths to the old apple trees.

Mr. Isaiah Green of Carlisle, who lives nearest to the Kibbe Place, can remember when there were three or four houses around him (he is nearly eighty years old and has always lived there and was born there); now he is quite retired, and the nearest road is scarcely used at all. He spoke of one old field, now grown up, which [we] were going through, as the “hog-pasture,” formerly. He found the meadows so dry that it was thought to be a good time to burn out the moss.

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About the Author

Henry David Thoreau was an American essayist, poet and Transcendentalist.

Publication Rights

From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau (this entry is from the year 1851). Thoreau’s writings are in the public domain (via).