LETTER CVIII. 

 To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. 



As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable 

 ill the northerly climate of England, where the sum- 

 mers are often so defective in warmth and sunshine 

 as not to ripen the fruits oi the earth so well as might 

 be wished, I shall be more concise in my account of 

 the intensity of a summer season, and so make a little 

 amends for the prolix account of the degrees of cold, 

 and the inconveniences that we suffered from some 

 late rigorous winters. 



The summers of 1781 and 1783 were unusually 



hot and dry ; to them therefore I shall turn back in 



my journals, without recurring to any more distant 



period. In the former of these years my peach and 



nectarine trees suffered so much from the heat, that 



the rind on the bodies were scalded and came off ; 



since which the trees have been in a decaying state. 



This may prove a hint to assiduous gardeners to 



fence and shelter their wall-trees with mats or boards, 



as they may easily do, because such annoyance is 



seldom of long continuance. During that summer, 



also, I observed that my apples were coddled, as it 



were, on the trees ; so that they had no quickness 



of flavour, and they did not keep in the winter. This 



circumstance put me in mind of what I have heard 



travellers assert, that they never ate a good apple, or 



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