On a Hail Storm near Jedburgh. By J. S. Dudgeon. 329 



The injury done to the turnip crop, though at the time appar- 

 ently irreparable, turned out not so serious. A field of twenty 

 acres under Swedes, which had been thinned out for some three 

 weeks and was looking luxuriant, was so mercilessly dealt with 

 that no vestige of a leaf was left, and the rootlets themselves 

 could only be discovered by poking for them amongst the soil. 

 Yet, strange to say, the field of Swedes recovered so wonderfully 

 that ultimately it turned out a fair crop. In the case, however, 

 of common turnips the result was different, for a field of seven- 

 teen acres under this crop, which was cut up in like fashion, 

 never recovered the injury, and in the end turned out next to 

 worthless. 



The severity of the storm may perhaps be best appreciated by 

 its effect on an old grass field of 50 acres at Knowesouth, which 

 was in the height of its well-known mid-summer luxuriance of 

 vegetation, carrying a stock of 53 head of cattle and 2 scores of 

 sheep. So much was it destroyed, that next day it had to be 

 relieved of 25 head of cattle, and even then, those remaining 

 wore pinched for meat during the next three weeks. 



A curious circumstance was observable in a small field of oats 

 on the upper part of Rewcastle farm. A single ash-tree, about 

 50 feet high, stands in the middle of this field. Beginning at 

 this tree and extending the whole length of the field southwards 

 for 100 yards, the ground too sloping very considerably upwards, 

 say quite 50 feet from the tree to the boundary fence, there was 

 distinctly noticeable a strip of the crop, in width fully equal to 

 the greatest breadth of the tree's foliage, which had escaped in 

 great measure the severity of the blast. It seemed to indicate 

 that the shelter this tree had afforded was sufficient to save the 

 crop to its leeward for a distance of at least 100 yards, and 

 that even when the ground sloped somewhat steeply upwards 

 from it. 



Pi 



