OF SELBORNE. 



151 



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 annoy- 

 ance is seldom of long continuance. Dur- 

 ing 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 in- 

 sipid. 



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 



