112 



were among the sorts I noticed. There 

 are also some other very fine-looking 

 varieties which are new to my view, 

 but none appear better than the above, 

 which are fine in the extreme. 



I am aware that the speculative theo- 

 rist will suppose that this difference is 

 more the effect of climate or chance*, 



* It 13 usual with human nature on the first ap- 

 pearance of any strange phenomena, to endeavour 

 to account for them offhand. Many persons ai'e apt 

 to attribute the change in this state of our trees to 

 an alteration in climate. And some very curious 

 reasons are given by a gentleman of Worcestershire, 

 who from the appearance of our fruit trees, very 

 ingeniously attributes such change to a greater 

 degree of moisture being exhaled from the in- 

 creased number of exotic plants that have lately 

 been introduced. Vide I. Williams, Esq. on Climate. 



Others, considering the great quantity of ice that 

 has accumulated of late years between Greenland 

 and Iceland, and which it is said has produced an 

 alteration for the worse in the climate of Iceland, 

 have supposed that it affects even that of our own 

 island; but as we pursue the thread of these inge- 

 nious reasonings, we find many knots that few per- 

 sons are able to untie, by cutting any one of which 

 the argument becomes confused, and consequently 

 the clue is lost altogether; — the small age of reason 



