NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 191 



amidst the general havock : hence men should learn to 

 ornament chiefly with such trees as are able to withstand 

 accidental severities, and not subject themselves to the 

 vexation of a loss which may befal them once perhaps in 

 ten years, yet may hardly be recovered through the whole 

 course of their lives. 



As it appeared afterwards, the ilexes were much injured, 

 the cypresses were half destroyed, the arbutuses lingered 

 on, but never recovered ; and the bays, laurustines, and 

 laurels, were killed to the ground ; and the very wild 

 hollies, in hot aspects, were so much affected that they 

 cast all their leaves. 



By the i4th of January the snow was entirely gone ; the 

 turnips emerged not damaged at all, save in sunny places ; 

 the wheat looked delicately, and the garden plants were 

 well preserved ; for snow is the most kindly mantle that 

 infant vegetation can be wrapped in : were it not for that 

 friendly meteor no vegetable life could exist at all in 

 northerly regions. Yet in Sweden the earth in April is not 

 divested of snow for more than a fortnight before the face 

 of the country is covered with flowers. 



