Thoreau writes in his journal:
The thaw which began on the 4th lasted through the 8th.  When I surveyed Shattuck’s pasture fields, about January 10th. I was the more pleased wit the task because of the three will-rows about them. One, trimmed a year before, had grown about seven feet, a dense hedge of bright-yellow osiers. But MacManus, who was helping with me, said that he though the land would be worth two hundred dollars more if the willows were out of the way, they so filled the ground with their roots. He had found that you could not plow within five rods of them, unless at right angles with the rows . . .
