FROST AND SNOW 295 



But the frost destroys the whole brood and restores their virtue 

 to the soil. English farmers have an almost mystic belief 

 in the frost and snow. They think that both, but snow 

 especially, give to the ground some definite fertility from 

 their own store. They will use the blessed word ' electric ' 

 in discussing the question. It is true that a snowstorm is 

 always associated with some increase of electrical pheno- 

 mena ; but how this adds fertility to the soil passes 

 present powers of conjecture. Frost doubtless increases 

 fertility by its mechanical power of pulverising the soil. Its 

 effect is especially marked on chalk ; and as fertility is now 

 known to demand immensely on the amount of available 

 lime in the soil, frost may in this way actually add artificial 

 manure. It makes available what was locked up. If we 

 could always have snow and frost in December, January, or 

 even February, and subtracted from later months of the year, 

 our climate would be indeed gracious. 



Birds suffer, but they alone, from hard frost. A week 

 of it does them little harm ; for against winter severity all 

 our own birds have a certain protection. In a lesser degree 

 they are like turtles which can live for months on their own 

 fat. As winter comes on the fat increases. Naturally and 

 by inclination they prefer to eat less in winter times, and it 

 is only when the frost is very long that hunger begins. Like 

 the trees, the later the frost the more the suffering. Their 

 appetite grows with the duration of light. A thrush is 

 twice as hungry in February as in December ; and when 

 the ground is too hard for a bill to penetrate, when the 

 worms are driven back from the surface and cockchafer 

 grubs unprocurable and berries grown scarcer then the 

 thrush may die if the frost holds, though it may not be 

 severe. They suffer also from thirst. It is a very strange 

 thing that if you put out and keep open a bowl of water, 



