262 PECULIARITIES OF 



up; large forest trees, especially the elm, had their 

 leaves so scorched by the sun, that they fell from their 

 sprays as in autumn, rustling along the ground; the 

 larch became perfectly deciduous. In our gardens, the 

 havoc occasioned by the heat was very manifest. The 

 fruit of the gooseberry, burnt up before maturity, hung 

 shrivelled upon the leafless bushes ; the strawberry and 

 raspberry quite withered away ; the stalk of the early 

 potato was perfectly destroyed, and the tubers near the 

 surface in many places became roasted and sodden by 

 the heat, few obtaining their natural size, and sold at 

 this period in the Bristol market at twenty-four shillings 

 the sack. A few choice plants were saved by watering 

 them daily ; but in general the exhalation from the foli- 

 age, by reason of the heat of the earth, was greater 

 than the root could supply, the green parts withering as 

 if seared by a frost. 



On the 20th of July, some farmers began to cut their 

 wheat; and by the 25th reaping had generally com- 

 menced. Our bean crop presented, perhaps, an unpre- 

 cedented instance of early ripeness, being usually 

 mowed in September ; but this year it was universally 

 ripe, indeed more perfectly so than the wheat, by the 

 1st of August. The crop, however, proved a defective 

 one : water became scarce, and the herbage of the fields 

 afforded so little nutriment, that the cows nearly lost 

 their milk, eight or ten being milked into a pail that 

 four should have filled ; and one week, from July the 

 18th to the 24th, butter could not be made to harden, 

 but remained a soft oleaginous mass. 



This extreme heat had a favorable influence on many 

 of our exotic plants, enabling several to perfect their 

 seed, which do not usually in our climate ; such as night- 

 stocks, erodiums, heliotrope, groundsels, cape-asters, 

 and such green-house plants vegetating in the open air. 

 With me all the polyanthus tribe, especially the double 

 varieties, suffered greatly ; lovers of the cold and mois- 

 ture of a northern climate, in this tropic heat, they be- 

 came so parched as never properly to recover their ver- 

 dure, and in the ensuing spring I missed these gay and 

 pleasing flowers in my borders. 



