Blossomed Boughs 67 



years, according to the weather. In mild years 

 and in sunny hillside hollows where later the grass- 

 hoppers abound, it may be seen with its loose stars 

 flung open even in February. In cold springs the 

 great burst of sloe blossom may be retarded till 

 nearly May ; while the normal time for its appear- 

 ance is about the second week in April, and it is 

 therefore this moment of the year that we call the 

 " blackthorn winter," if, as is common, it proves 

 but little like spring. 



Much like the old-fashioned farmers who in wet 

 harvest- times would kick the weather-glass down the 

 yard, there are people who during unpleasant April 

 weather of this kind are wont to cast imprecations at 

 the whitened blackthorn bushes when they meet them 

 on their shivering walks. There is, indeed, a pecu- 

 liarly dead and chilly tone about the whiteness of the 

 blackthorn petals, suspiciously akin to the hue of the 

 half-melted drifts of hail which are left by a whoop- 

 ing April squall. By the doctrine of sympathies, 

 once of high repute in science, this might be sup- 

 posed to show that the blackthorn was responsible 

 for these Arctic inroads. Yet, in point of fact, there 

 is nothing that suffers more from a blackthorn 

 winter than the blackthorns themselves ; for when 

 frost and hail burst down from the eastern sky at 

 the moment of their most plentiful flowering, the 

 incipient fruit is destroyed, and they bear no purple 

 sloes in the hedgerows of October. The precise 

 limits of the period when fruit blossom may be killed 

 by cold are always a little difficult to determine ; 

 sometimes the fruit proves to have taken no harm 



