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209 however, to get a new impetus after the first spring.

March 22, 1860. Some of the phenomena of an average March are increasing warmth, melting the snow and ice, and gradually the frost in the ground; cold and blustering weather, with high, commonly northwest, winds for many days together; misty and other rains taking out frosts, whitenings of snow, and winter often back again, both its cold and snow; bare ground and open waters, and more or less of a freshet; some calm and pleasant days reminding us of summer, with a blue haze or a thicker mist over the woods at last, in which, perchance, we take off our coats a while, and sit without a fire; the ways getting settled, and some greenness appearing on south banks; April-like rains after the frost is chiefly out; plowing and planting of peas, etc., just beginning, and the old leaves getting dry in the woods.

March 22, 1861. A driving northeast snowstorm yesterday and last night, and to-day the drifts are high over the fences, and the trains stopped. The Boston train due at 8½ did not reach here till 5 this  One side of all the houses this morning was one color, i. e., white, with the moist snow plastered over them so that you could not tell whether they had blinds or not.