WITHERING AND SEARING OF LEAVES. 375 



as a sponge, that the evil we endeavour to remove 

 is by the autumn increased : where gravel is not 

 obtainable, paring off the crest of the walk is the 

 only effectual remedy, and this ultimately we are 

 necessitated to resort to. It is notable that such a 

 very insignificant product, this hardly discernible 

 plant, should endanger limb and life, and by cir- 

 cumstances become so formidable to us " lords of 

 the creation," as to force us to devise contrivances 

 to counteract its injurious tendencies. 



There are times when we suffer here greatly by 

 the withering and 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 in- 

 finite annual mischief, if not destruction, to our 

 wall fruit, is most manifest ; yet there is great rea- 

 son 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 west- 

 ern 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 ad- 

 joining country where the wind passes. This saline 

 wind has often been suspected by me as the evil 

 agent that accomplishes most of our blightings 

 here ; and on November the 3d, 1825, these sus- 



