272 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



that day the air became entirely clear ; and the heat of the 

 sun about noon had a considerable influence in sheltered 

 situations. 



It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author^s 

 evergreens 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 uninjured. 



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 emergencies ; 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 extensive, to see that his 

 people go about with prongs and forks, and carefully 

 dislodge the snow from the boughs : since the naked foliage 

 will shift much better for itself than where the snow is 

 partly melted and frozen again. 



It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox; but 

 doubtless the more tender trees and shrubs should never be 

 planted in hot aspects ; not only for the reason assigned 

 above, but also because, thus circumstanced, they are 

 disposed to shoot earlier in the spring, and to grow on later 

 in the autumn than they would otherwise do, and so are 

 sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For this reason also 

 plants from Siberia will hardly endure our climate ; because, 

 on the very first advances of spring, they shoot away, and 

 so are cut off by the severe nights of March or April. 



