OF SELBORNE. 131 



It was in such an aspect that the snow 

 on the author's ever-greens 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 un- 

 injured. 



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 emergen- 

 cies ; and, if his plantations are small, to 

 avail himself of mats, cloths, pease-haum, 

 straw, reeds or any such covering, for a 

 short time ; or if his shrubberies are ex- 

 tensive, to see that his people go about with 

 prongs and forks, and carefully dislodge 

 the snow from the boughs : since the naked 

 K 2 



