250 The Natural History 



LETTER LXIV 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in the 

 northerly climate of England, where the summers are 

 often so defective in warmth and sunshine as not to ripen 

 the fruits of the earth so well as might be wished, I shall 

 be more concise in my account of the severity of a summer 

 season, and so make a little amends for the prolix account 

 of the degrees of cold, and the inconveniences that we 

 suffered from late rigorous winters. 



The summers of 178 1 and 1783 were unusually hot and 

 dry j to them therefore I shall turn back in my journals, 

 without recurring to any more distant period. In the 

 former of these years my peach and nectarine-trees suffered 

 so much from the heat that the rind on the bodies was 

 scalded and came off; since which the trees have been in a 

 decaying state. This may prove a hint to assiduous 

 gardeners to fence and shelter their wall-trees with mats 

 or boards, as they may easily do, because such annoyance 

 is seldom of long continuance. During that summer also, 

 I observed that my apples were coddled, as it were, on 

 the trees ; so that they had no quickness of flavour, and 

 would not keep in the winter. This circumstance put me 

 in mind of what I have heard travellers assert, that they 

 never ate a good apple or apricot in the south of Europe, 

 where the heats were so great as to render the juices vapid 

 and insipid. 



The great pests of a garden are wasps, which destroy all 

 the finer fruits just as they are coming into perfection. In 

 1781 we had none; in 1783 there were myriads; which 

 would have devoured all the produce of my garden, had 

 not we set the boys to take the nests, and caught thousands 

 with hazel twigs tipped with bird-lime : we have since 

 employed the boys to take and destroy the large breeding 

 wasps in the spring. Such expedients have a great effect 

 on these marauders, and will keep them under. Though 



