On travelling 1 3/4 miles into the forest in this neighbourhood, I saw that the ground was half-covered in snow to the depth of 6 inches. I missed all the pleasing spring flowers, for they had gradually become fewer during the course of the day, and the birches here – unlike those yesterday – had not yet opened their leaves to adorn the forest. Only the evergreen plants such as ‘Erica’ [Heather] and ‘Vaccinium’ [cowberry and cranberry] were visible through the snow. The reason why the snow was still lying here was that terribly high hills lay all around and the forest cloaked everything. The hills prevented the pleasant west wind from playing here and the trees excluded the south wind. And all the warm rain was captured by the trees of the vast forest. Almost the whole province consists of hills, hence the numerous channels that run down to the valleys between each and every hill. Since rainwater cannot remain on a steep slope, it runs off the side and finds its escape via these channels. The same is true in Hälsingland and Medelpad.