1818.
March 11. Bluebirds arrived.
13. Woodpeckers, robins, and blackbirds arrived. Bees out of the hive.
March 14. Broad-leaved panic grass (Panicum latifolium) beginning to sprout on a southern exposure, while there is sleighing in the street. A solitary spathe of skunk-cabbage (Pothos fœtida) beginning to show itself on the same exposure. Leaves of curled dock (Rumex crispa) appeared in the same place. Maple-trees tapped for sugar.
16. Pothos fœtida in full flower.
25. Black ducks arrived. Catkins of the poplar-tree (Populus tremuloides) expanded. Catkins of the speckled willow (Salix Muhlenbergiana) expanded.
30. Wild geese arrived. Phœbe arrived.
It began to rain hard on the first of March, and continued raining two days and a half, which nearly carried off an immense body of snow which enveloped the ground. Our rivers, which were more firmly locked with ice than they had been before known for many years to be, rose above their usual bounds, and swept the ice with such rapidity down their channels as to destroy most of the bridges on Connecticut river, besides doing immense damage in other respects. Our meadows were nearly all under ice and water; and at that time a great explosion was heard in the north meadows, two miles from the street, similar to the noise of a cannon. It was occasioned by the throwing up of an immense quantity of frozen ground, which is a great curiosity. The cause is not yet satisfactorily explained. The weather was very warm and pleasant from the 4th to the 22d. What snow the rain did not carry off was melted by the sun during the pleasant weather. Vegetation had begun to put forth rapidly, and many of our birds of passage had arrived. A storm, which commenced on the 22d, as rapidly retarded the progress of vegetation as it was before accelerated, and the remainder of the month was gloomy and uncomfortable. Mud mid-leg deep in the streets.
April 7. Flower-buds of the elm (Ulmus americana) beginning to swell.