254 WITHERING AND SEARING OF LEAVES. 



insignificant product, this hardly discernible plant, 

 should endanger limb and life, and by circumstances 

 become so formidable to us " lords of the creation," as 

 to force us to devise contrivances to counteract its inju- 

 rious tendencies. 



There are times when we suffer here greatly by the 

 withering arid searing up as it were of the leaves of our 

 vegetation, which we attribute generally to an early 

 morning's frost. That late spring frosts do occasion 

 such injuries, and that noxious blasts, from causes which 

 we cannot divine, occasion infinite annual mischief, if 

 not destruction, to our wall fruit, is most manifest ; yet 

 there is great reason to suspect that a large portion of 

 the injuries which we ascribe to blights, blasts, and 

 frosts, are occasioned by saline sprays brought by strong 

 western or south-western gales from King-road in the 

 Bristol Channel, eight or ten miles distant, or from even 

 more remote waters, and swept over the adjoining coun- 

 try where the wind passes. This saline wind has often 

 been suspected by me as the evil agent that accom- 

 plishes most of our blightings here ; and on November 

 the 3d, 1825, these suspicions were corroborated for 

 on this and the preceding days we had strong gales 

 from the water, in consequence of which such windows 

 as were situate to the west and south-west were skim- 

 med over with a light saline scurf, the brass-work of 

 the doors was corroded and turned green, painted works 

 of all kinds were salt to the tongue, as was every thing 

 that could condense the moisture ; and the leaves of the 

 shrubs in the hedge-rows, and of trees, all turned brown, 

 and were crisped up. A row of large elms in particular, 

 that fronted the gale, received its full influence ; the 

 whole of the windward side, then in full foliage, became 

 perfectly brown and seared, and the leaves shortly after- 

 wards parted from their sprays and left them bare ; 

 while the other and sheltered side of the trees preserved 

 its green foliage very slightly influenced by the spray 

 that burned up the other. No period of the leafy sea- 

 son is exempt from these pernicious effects, more or 

 less, if the wind be sufficiently violent and blowing 

 from the water. Portions of the country distant from 



