248 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



ground without any drifting, wrapping up the more humble 

 vegetation in perfect security. From the first day to the fifth of 

 the new year more snow succeeded; but from that day the air 

 became entirely clear ; and the heat of the sun about noon had a 

 considerable influence in sheltered situations. 



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 situa- 

 tion, where the snow was never melted at all, remained un- 

 injured. 



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 dis- 

 lodge 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 

 otherwise 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 



