have fallen or been removed during the winter.  This, with attending to the stock, which at this season require particular care, gives them sufficient occupation—­the sheep, which have long since been wearied of the “durance vile” which bound them to the hay-rick, may now be seen in groups on the little isles of emerald green which appear in the white fields; and the cattle, that for six long weary months have been ruminating in their stalls, or “chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy” in the barn yards, now begin to extend their perigrinations towards the woods, browsing with delight on the sweet young buds of the birch tree.  At this season it is, for obvious reasons, desirable that the “milky mothers” should not stray far from home—­many “a staid brow’d matron” has disappeared in the spring, and, after her summer rambles in the woods, returned in the “fall” with her full-grown calf by her side, but many a good cow has gone and been seen no more, but as a white skeleton gleaming among the green leaves.  To prevent these mischances, a bell is fastened on the leader of the herd, the intention of which is to guide where they may be found.  This bell is worn all summer, as their pasture is the rich herbage of the forest.  It is taken off during the winter, and its first sounds now tell us, although the days are cold, and the snow not yet gone, that brighter times are coming.  The clear concerts of the frogs ring loudly out from marsh and lake, and at this season alone is heard the lay of the wood-robin, and the blackbird.  The green glossy leaves of the winter green, whose bright scarlet berries look like clusters of coral on the snow, now seem even brighter than they were—­the blue violet rises among the sheltered moss by the old tree roots, and the broad-leaved adder tongue gives out its orange and purple blossoms to gladden the brown earth, while the trees are yet all black and barren, save the various species of pine and spruce, which now wear a fringe of softer green.  The May flowers of New Brunswick seldom blossom till June, which is rather an Irish thing of them to do, and although the weather has been fine, and recalls to the memory the balmy breath of May, yet I have often seen a pearly wreath of new fallen snow, deck the threshhold on that ‘merrie morn’.  After the evaporation of the steaming vapour of spring has gone forward, and the farmer has operated in the way of ploughing and sowing, on whatever ready-prepared land he may have for the purpose, the first dry “spell” is looked forward to most anxiously to burn off the land which has been chopped during the winter—­it is bad policy, however, to depend for the whole crop on this “spring burn,” as a long continuance of wet weather may prevent it.  The new settler, on his first season, has nothing else to depend upon; but the older ones chop the land at intervals during the summer, and clear it off in the autumn, and thus have it ready for the ensuing spring.  Burning a chopping, or