284 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



of the degrees of cold, and the inconveniences that we 

 suffered from 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 

 was 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 

 would 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 apricot in the south of Europe, 

 where the heats were so great as to render the juices vapid 

 and insipid. 



The great pests of a garden are wasps, which destroy all 

 the finer fruits just as they are coming into perfection. In 

 1781 we had none ; in 1783 there were myriads ; which 

 would have devoured all the produce of my garden, had 

 not we set the boys to take the nests, and caught thousands 

 with hazel twigs tipped with bird-lime : we have since 

 employed the boys to take and destroy the large breeding 

 wasps in the spring. Such expedients have a great effect 

 on these marauders, and will keep them under. Though 

 wasps do not abound but in hot summers, yet they do not 

 prevail in every hot summer, as I have instanced in the 

 two years above mentioned. 



In the sultry season of 1783 honey-dews were so fre- 

 quent as to deface and destroy the beauties of my garden. 

 My honey-suckles, which were one week the most sweet 

 and lovely objects that the eye could behold, became the 



