NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



experience in measuring the water is but of short date, I am not 

 qualified to give the mean quantity.* I only know that 



Inch. Hum!. 



From May 

 Jan. 

 Jan. 

 Jan. 

 Jan. 

 Jan. 

 Jan. 

 Jan. 



i779> to ^e end of the year there fell 28 37 ! 



1780, to Jan. i, 1781 27 32 



1781, to Jan. i, 1782 30 71 



1782, to Jan. i, 1783 50 26! 



1783, to Jan. i, 1784 33 71 



1784, to Jan. i, 1785 33 80 



1785, to Jan. i, 1786 31 55 



1786, to Jan. i, 1787 39 57! 



The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the 

 single farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest, 

 contain upwards of six hundred and seventy inhabitants. See below. 



We abound with poor ; many of whom are sober and industrious, 

 and live comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, which are 

 glazed, and have chambers above stairs : mud buildings we have 

 none. Besides the employment from husbandry, the men work in 

 hop-gardens, of which we have many-; and fell and bark timber. 

 In the spring and summer the women weed the corn ; and enjoy a 

 second harvest in September by hop-picking. Formerly, in the 

 dead months they availed themselves greErtly by spinning wool, for 

 making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at 

 that time for summer wear ; and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a 

 neighbouring town, by some of the people called Quakers : but from 

 circumstances this trade is at an end.J The inhabitants enjoy a good 

 share of health and longevity ; and the parish swarms with children. 



* A very intelligent gentleman x assures me (and he speaks from upwards of forty years 

 experience), that the mean rain of any place cannot be ascertained till a person has 

 jieasured it for a very long period. " If I had only measured the rain," says he, " for 

 the four first years, from 1740 to 1743, I should have said the mean rain at Lyndon was 

 i6A inches for the year ; if from 1740 to 1750, 18^ inches. The mean rain before 1763 was 

 2o.f inches, from 1763 and since 255 inches, from 1770 to 1780, 26 inches. If only 1773, 

 1774, and 1775, had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would have been called 32 inches." 



t Mr. Bennet has given a continuation of the register of the rain-gauge up to 1793. 

 Some of the years show a greater quantity than any of the previous ones, except 1782. 

 Three of them considerably above 40, the last 48'56. 



\ Since the passage above was written, I am happy in being able to say that the 

 spinning employment is a little revived, to the no small comfort of the industrious house- 

 wife. 



1 The intelligent gentleman, referred to in the author's note to this letter, was Thomas 

 Barker, of an ancient and respectable family in the county of Rutland, brother-in-law to 

 Mr. White. 



The vignettes at commencement and conclusion of the letter represent those hollow 

 lanes so quaintly alluded to m its first paragraph. 



A STATE OF THE PARISH OF SELBORNE, TAKEN OCTOBER 4, 1783. 



The number of tenements or families, 136. 

 The number of inhabitants in the street is 313 I Total 676 ; near five inhabitants to each 



In the rest of the parish 363) tenement. 



In the time of the Rev. Gilbert White, Vicar, who died in 1727-8, the number of 

 inhabitants was computed at about 500. 



