William Bartram’s May Diary: A Window into Early American Nature
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
May 13, 1823
On this day, William Bartram, American botanist, ornithologist, natural historian, and explorer, penned an entry in his diary that transports us to a spring day nearly two centuries ago.
Can you imagine standing beside him in his garden, observing the bustling life around you?
Bartram wrote:
[There are] numerous tribes of small birds, feeding on the aphids on the apple, pear trees - towhe buntings building their nests in the garden.
Picture the scene: apple and pear trees buzzing with activity, tiny birds flitting from branch to branch, feasting on aphids.
In the undergrowth, towhee buntings busily constructing their nests, oblivious to the watchful eye of our naturalist.
Sharon White, in her book Vanished Gardens: Finding Nature in Philadelphia (2011), paints a vivid picture of Bartram's May observations:
May was misty sometimes with a morning wind and cruel with cold rains for a week "injurious to vegitation and to the farmers.
Wheat just begining to ear appears to be blasted in many instances," and young birds drowned in their nests on the ground.
Now and then Bartram's notations look different, smaller script, less detail.
In the last year he kept the diary his writing scrawls across one page as if his hand slipped.
The green twig whortleberry is in flower on May 6 in 1802, and the next May he records that a bullfrog swallowed: large mole instantly.
That May there was hard frost on the seventh that killed the young shoots of trees and shrubs.
Can you feel the chill of that cruel May rain, or see the mist rising in the early morning?
Bartram's observations remind us of the delicate balance of nature.
The same spring that brings forth new life can also be harsh and unforgiving.
Imagine the heartbreak of seeing young birds drowned in their ground nests, or tender shoots withered by an unexpected frost.
Yet, amidst these sobering observations, there's a sense of wonder. The green twig whortleberry bursting into bloom, the startling sight of a bullfrog swallowing a large mole "instantly" - these moments of natural drama captured in Bartram's neat script.
As we read these entries, we're not just peering into Bartram's garden, but into the very practice of natural observation.
Notice how White describes the changing nature of Bartram's handwriting - smaller script, less detail, and finally, in his last year of diary-keeping, a scrawl across the page "as if his hand slipped."
These physical traces on the page tell their own story of a naturalist's life and the passage of time.
As we tend to our own gardens today, let's take a moment to observe the world around us with Bartram's keen eye.
What stories might our own gardens tell?
What dramas unfold, unnoticed, in the lives of the birds, insects, and plants that share our spaces?
Perhaps, inspired by Bartram, we might even start our own nature diaries.
After all, who knows what future insights our observations might provide to those who come after us?