Scattered here and there about the borders of the field are groups of dwarf goldenrod still in full leaf and flower, so far as form goes. The crowded terminal panicles of bloom bend gracefully towards earth like stout ostrich plumes, and I think they are more beautiful in the feathery russet of crowded seed-masses than they were in their September finery of golden yellow. Their stems are lined with leaves still, but these have lost their sombre green to put on the color of deep seal brown. It is as if they had donned their sealskin cloaks for winter wear. But all these clumps are doubly protected in another way, not for their own sake, for they are but dead stems, but for the birds, who will need their seeds when the snows later in the month shall have covered the ground far out of their reach. All the autumn the winds have been whirling dry leaves back and forth, and each clump has trapped them cunningly till the slender stems that might otherwise be buried and broken by the snow are reënforced on all sides by elastic leaves that will hold them bravely up. Here is an open larder, a free-lunch counter for the goldfinches and chickadees of next January. Here they may glean and glean again, for except they be plucked by eager beaks some of these seeds will not let go their grip on the receptacles till spring rains loosen them and the ground is fit for their sowing. Everywhere in wood and pasture the numbers of seeds of plants and trees that are thus held waiting the winter gleaners are incomputable; nor will these need to seek them on the plant itself, for little by little as the winter winds come and go they will loose their hold and scatter themselves about as we scatter crumbs for the snow-birds and sparrows. Here are the birches, for instance, holding fast still to their wealth. If bursting spring buds could be gray-brown in color instead of sage-green we well might think the trees had another almanac than our own and that with them it was late April, for wherever the trees are silhouetted against the light we see every twig decorated with new life. It is new life, indeed, but not that of spring leaves. Every tree has a thousand cones, and every cone is packed with tiny seeds about a central core of stiff fibre that is like a fine wire.