OF SELBORNE 241 



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 considerable 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 con- 

 siderable influence in sheltered situations. 



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

 ever-greens 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 carefuUy dis- 

 lodge 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 doubt- 

 less 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 dis- 

 posed to shoot earlier in the spring, and 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 wiU hardly endure our climate : because, 



Q 



