164 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 1737 



I can. The tank at Newton is made of brick : their beer 

 was, and is, often good; but their water, when drank by 

 itself, has a filthy taste of lime and moss. Their table beer 

 does not keep in summer.* 



Please to present my best thanks to my sister for her 

 kind charity which will be very acceptable to our numerous 

 poor. Mrs. Etty is here, but will leave us soon, perhaps 

 'til midsummer. Y'^ affectionate servant, 



G. White. 



The crop of beech-mast was prodigious, and of great 

 service to men's hogs, which were half fat before they were 

 shut up. Between mast and potatoes poor men killed very 

 large hogs at little expense. Tom Berriman's hog weighed 

 16 scores; yet eat only seven bushels of barley-meal: 

 whereas without the help above mentioned, he would have 

 required 20 bushels. 



Dame Berriman is much disordered in her mind, and 

 very violent. I sent a woman to scatter some beech-seed 

 in every bush on the down. 



Mrs. J. White joins in respects. Barometer has been 

 very high for some days ; on Monday it was 30-3. 



From the Naturalist's Journal — 



" March 27. Swallows were first seen this year at Messina 

 in Sicily. 



"April 6. Nightingal sings at Citraro in the nearer 

 Calabria, f 



" [April] 13. Sam[son] White elected a fellow of Oriel 

 College in Oxford." 



* Amongst Gilbert White's papers there is " An account of the brewings of 

 strong-beer. A chronicle of strong-beer, and raisin wine," beginning March 

 24th, 1772, and containing regular entries of the brewing and tapping of 

 strong beer and raisin wine, and bottling out port wine. The last entry- 

 occurs thirteen days before his death — "June 13th, 1793. Tapped the other 

 barrel of raisin wine : it is well-flavoured." 



t Communicated, no doubt, by Dr. Chandler. 



