274 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 



It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author's ever- 

 greens was melted every day, and frozen intensely every night ; 

 so that the laurustines, bays, laurels, and arbutuses looked, in 

 three or four days, as if they had been burnt in the fire ; while a 

 neighbour's plantation of the same kind, in a high cold situation, 

 where the snow was never melted at all, remained uninjured. 



From hence I would infer that it is the repeated melting and 

 freezing of the snow that is so fatal to vegetation, rather than the 

 severity of the cold. Therefore it highly behoves every planter, 

 who wishes to escape the cruel mortification of losing in a few 

 days the labour and hopes of years, to bestir himself on such 

 emergencies ; and if his plantations are small, to avail himself of 

 mats, cloths, pease-haum, straw, reeds, or any such covering, for 

 a short time ; or, if his shrubberies are extensive, to see that his 

 people go about with prongs and forks, and carefully dislodge the 

 snow from the boughs : since the naked foliage will shift much 

 better for itself, than where the snow is partly melted and frozen 

 again. 



It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox ; but doubtless 

 the more tender trees and shrubs should never be planted in hot 

 aspects ; not only for the reason assigned above, but also because, 

 thus circumstanced, they are disposed to shoot earlier in the 

 spring, and to grow on later in the autumn than they would other- 

 wise do, and so are sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For this 

 reason also plants from Siberia will hardly endure our climate ; 

 because, on the very first advances of spring, they shoot away, 

 and so are cut off by the severe nights of March or April. 



Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same incon- 

 venience with respect to the more tender shrubs from North 

 America, which they therefore plant under north walls. There 

 should also perhaps be a wall to the east to defend them from 

 the piercing blasts from that quarter. 



This observation might without any impropriety be carried into 

 animal life ; for discerning bee-masters now find that their hives 

 should not in the winter be exposed to the hot sun, because such 

 unseasonable warmth awakens the inhabitants too early from their 

 slumbers ; and, by putting their juices into motion too soon, 



