NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 1Q1 



It may not be impertinent to add, that the barometers at Selborne 

 stand three-tenths of an inch lower than the barometers at South 

 Lambeth : whence we may conclude that the former place is about 

 three hundred feet higher than the latter; and with good reason, 

 because the streams that rise with us run into the Thames at Weybridge, 

 and so to London. Of course therefore there must be lower ground all 

 the way from Selborne to South Lambeth ; the distance between which, 

 all the windings and indentings of the streams considered, cannot be 

 less than an hundred miles. I am, &c. 



LETTER LXI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SINCE the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its natural 

 history, I shall make no further apology for the four following letters, 

 which will contain many particulars concerning some of the great frosts, 

 and a few respecting some very hot summers, that have distinguished 

 themselves from the rest during the course of my observations. 



As the frost in January 1768 was, for the small time it lasted, the 

 most severe that we had then known for many years, and was remark- 

 ably injurious to evergreens, some account of its rigour, and reason of 

 its ravages, may be useful, and not unacceptable to persons that delight 

 in planting and ornamenting ; and may particularly become a work 

 that professes never to lose sight of utility. 



For the last two or three days of the former year there were con- 

 siderable falls of snow, which lay deep and uniform on the ground 

 without any drifting, wrapping up the more humble vegetation in 

 perfect security. From the first day to the fifth of the new year more 

 snow succeeded ; but from 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 laurus- 

 tines, 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. 



