270 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER LXI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SINCE the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its natural 

 history, I shall make no further apology for the four following 

 letters, which will contain many particulars concerning some of 

 the great frosts, and a few respecting some very hot summers, that 

 have distinguished themselves from the rest during the course of 

 my observations. 



As the frost in January 1768 was, for the small time it lasted, 

 the most severe that we had then known for many years, and was 

 remarkably injurious to evergreens, some account of its rigour, and 

 reason of its ravages, may be useful, and not unacceptable to 

 persons that delight in planting and ornamenting ; and may par- 

 ticularly become a work that professes never to lose sight of 

 utility. 



For the last two or three days of the former year there were con- 

 siderable falls of snow, which lay deep and uniform on the 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 in- 

 fluence in sheltered situations. 



It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author's evergreens 

 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 situation, where the 

 snow was never melted at all, remained uninjured. 



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, 



