252 
RETROSPECT OF THE SEASONS. 
did not require cutting down ; the consequence was a very early and beautiful bloom, 
which followed in succession for many months. 
The weather of May was chequered and mutable for three weeks ; the wind! 
fluctuating through every point, bringing rain and hail, and a few sunny days. The 
barometer was always low, but it began to rise steadily on the 21st, on which day 
we consider the summer of Horticulture to commence. 
The temperature had hitherto been rather low T , but remarkably equable, nights 
and days varying about 10 degrees, and averaging about 53 degrees ; but on the 
22nd the sun broke forth with a power rarely witnessed in these climates. The 
night had been cool (41 degrees), but by two o’clock the mercury had risen to 76 
degrees in a north-east aspect, and thence to the 22nd of June there followed one 
blaze of sunshine, the days being far above 76 degrees, and on many occasions 
between 80 and 90 degrees. The nights improved gradually, but never became 
oppressive. The ground dried with great rapidity, and those gardens which were 
not favoured with a continuous supply of soft water had their crops much injured. 
All the annuals w r ere stunted, unless watered twice a day ; fruits — the little which 
remained — were coddled ; and then we learnt, by fatal experience, that precocious 
summer heat and splendour, with all its beautiful concomitants, is attended with 
many drawbacks. It was perceived that heat and sun did not produce, in garden or 
field, that rapidity of growth which might have been expected ; and as to glazed 
erections, the gardener had constantly to attend to shade. Of the methods of 
shading w r e have on former occasions offered a few remarks. Wealth can accomplish 
anything, but in ordinary cases no medium is perhaps more available than a free- 
acting roller, fitted up with a rather open fabric of calico or coarse muslin ; the 
object being to cause a diffusion of softened light — not to obstruct the agency of the 
sun. We ought noiv to recollect that the beams combine electro-magnetism as well 
as heat. Light, therefore, is physically the stimulus, at least, if not the essence 
itself, of vitality. 
We pass over the remainder of the summer, which is in the recollection of every 
observant culturist. The weather, doubtless, was very different in places remote 
from each other, but that it was a season of vast heat, of searching aridity, and of 
much mischief to fruits and flowers, no one can doubt. July and August brought 
their rains, but those in the southern and eastern counties failed to penetrate the 
subsoil. In the latter month those awful storms occurred which produced more 
mischief, and stir in the repair of glass, than any other of recent occurrence. Our 
remarks in the first part of this article may, we hope, be found useful. With the 
third week of August our summer terminated ; yet if ever there were an exception, 
it was furnished by the late September, which, to the 22nd, or equinoctial day, 
retained all the fervid character of the finest period. 
It is worthy of remark that all the great meteoric changes have occurred on the 
21st and 22nd days. Again, a mutation is to be noted, for on the day of the 
autumnal equinox the wind veered by South — from East to S.W. — a brisk wind 
