LETTER LXIV. 



To the same. 



S the effects of heat are seldom very remark- 

 able in the northerly climate of England, 

 where the summers are often so defective in 

 warmth and sunshine as not to ripen the 

 fruits of the earth so well as might be wished, 

 I shall be more concise in my account of 

 the severity of a summer season, and so 

 make a little amends for the prolix account of the degrees of 

 cold, and the inconveniences that we suffered from some late 

 rigorous winters. 



The summers of 1781, and 1783, were unusually hot and 

 dry ; to them therefore I shall turn back in my journals, 

 without recurring to any more distant period. In the former 

 of these years my peach and nectarine trees suffered so much 

 from the heat that the rind on the bodies was scalded and 

 came off; since which the trees have been in a decaying 

 state. This may prove a hint to assiduous gardeners to fence 

 and shelter their wall-trees with mats or boards, as they may 

 easily do, because such annoyance is seldom of long con- 

 tinuance. During that summer also, I observed that my 

 apples were coddled, as it were, on the trees ; so that they 



