28 - PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1684. 



inch, the 2 flourishes take up the rest. They are very different from the 

 brogues of Ireland, and the Highlands of Scotland, for these latter have only 

 1 sole, but the former have 6. 



Abstract of a Letter from John Evelyn, Esq. concerning the Damage done to his 

 Gardens by the preceding Winter. N° 158, p. 559. 



The past winter has been most severe in my gardens and grounds, and where 

 it could attack the more defensible and such as were inclosed, it has ravaged all 

 that lay open and were abroad, without any mercy. 



As to timber trees, I have not many here of any considerable age or stature, 

 except a few elms; but these have not suffered as the great oaks have done, 

 nor do I find among many of the former, which I have planted, and that are 

 now about 25 and 30 years standing, any of them touched; the same I ob- 

 serve of limes, walnuts, ash, beech, hornbeams, birch, chesnuts, and other 

 foresters; but it seems the rifting so much complained of has happened chiefly 

 among the large trees, especially oaks ; Lords Weymouth, Chesterfield, Ferrers, 

 Sir William Fermor, and others concerned in the same calamity, have all com- . 

 plained, because of their distant habitations. But if rightly I remember, one 

 of these noble persons lately told me, that since the thaw, the trees which 

 were exceedingly split, were come together and closed again ; but that they are 

 really as solid as before I doubt will not appear, when they shall come to be 

 examined by the axe, and converted to use ; nor has this accident happened 

 only to standing timber, but to that which has been felled and seasoned. So 

 much for our indigenae. As for exotics, I fear my cork trees will hardly recover, 

 but the spring is yet so very backward, that I cannot pronounce any thing posi- 

 tively, especially of such whose bark is very thick and rugged, such as is the 

 cork, enzina, and divers of the resinous trees. The Constantinopolitan or 

 horse chesnut is turgid with buds, and ready to unfold its leaf. My cedars I 

 think are lost; the ilex and scarlet oak not so; the arbutus doubtful, and so are 

 bays, but some will escape, and mpst of them repullulate and spring afresh, if 

 cut down near the earth at the latter end of the month ; the Scotch fir, spruce, 

 and white Spanish, have received no damage this winter; I cannot say the same 

 of the pine which bears the greater cone, but other Norways and pinasters are 

 fresh ; laurel is only discoloured, and some of the woody branches mortified, 

 which being cut to the quick will soon put forth again, it being a succulent 

 plant. Among our shrubs, rosemary is entirely lost, and to my great sorrow; 

 because I had not only beautiful hedges of it, but sufficient to afford me flowers 

 for making a considerable quantity of hungary water; so universal, I fear, is 



