200 LETTERS TO GILBERT WHITE 



Mrs Mulso, your old Friend, recovers but very poorly of her 

 Illness ; & I principally meditate my Journey to Town upon her 

 Account. For London is no favourite Spot of Mine for any 

 Length of Time ; but I hope the Tout ensemble will be of Service 

 to Her. We were last week at Wakefield, but neither my Wife 

 or Sister were well there ; & I have been very ill since I came 

 back, & it is wth some DiflBculty that I write this ; yet I would 

 not delay, for One Opportunity lost is generally the Cause of 

 Failure thro' Many Posts. 



It will be well to get out of this Country this Winter. There 

 is Plenty of Nothing. Never was my Dairy in such a Condition. 

 The Hay was short ; but of after Grass hardly any : so long was 

 it before Bain followed upon Mowing. I shall leave a Family 

 behind me, & therefore go on wth Housekeeping, tho' absent. 



I have had a very dreadfuU accident lately in my House, for 

 my Gardener fell fm a high Walnut Tree, & we thought him at 

 first dying of a generall Mash ; but he escaped wth two broken 

 arms; one a Simple, the Other, a compound Fracture. They 

 now knit apace, & he goes about the Parish, directing (tho' not 

 able to labour wth his Hands,) in my Harvest affairs. 



I have never seen the works of Stillingfleet* that You speak 

 of ; & indeed it is a Subject that I am not so engaged in as 

 Yourself. I have so little Health, that I have no Temptation 

 to out-door work. Exercise is my Bane instead of my Medicine ; 

 nor am I ever so free from Complaint as when I take next to 

 none ; which to you would be a real Illness. It is not my 

 Laziness that makes the Observation, but my Apothecary is 

 obhged to confirm the Sentence by an Attendance upon my 

 Constitution for these last five Years & half. I therefore can 

 give you but little account of the vegetable world in Keturn 

 for your's (which pleases me much) ; I only know that as my 

 Table has not wanted Beans, Peas, Carrots, Onions, Cabbages, 

 or French Beans, when Mrs Mulso has order'd them, I suppose 

 that Yorkshire has not been so severely used by this Season, 

 (which certainly has been intemperate every where,) as Hamp- 

 shire ; where You say they have been demolished. My Melons 

 are but just come in. As to Wall fruit, I have Uttle or none : 

 my walls are not well supplied by Trees ; Some are young j 

 & Some I have lost since I supplied them, which I have done 

 more than Once. There are great Crops of apples this year. 

 I hear that Wheat & Barley run short this Year ; but I beleive 

 it is only that in the Tytheable part of Thornhill Township 

 they have put but little in the Ground : Of Oats there is Plenty. 

 Our Springs are exceeding low all around Us; & I have never 



* The " Miscellaneous Tracts " of Benjamin Stillingfleet, the Naturalist, 

 published in 1759, which Gilbert White refers to in his 10th and 13th letters 

 to Pennant. 



