194 
very juncture employing a draughts-man, a French. Refugee, to 
take two or three views of this extraordinary tree on folio paper, 
with an intent to have them engraved. Of this artist I have seen 
some performances; & think him capable of doing justice to the 
subject. These views my Brother proposes to have engraved, & 
will probably send a set to You, who deserve so well of all lovers 
of trees, as You have made them so much your study, & have 
taught men so much how to cultivate & improve them. — I have 
told You, I believe, before, that the great Holt Oak has 
long been known in these parts by the name of the grind- 
stone Oak, because an implement of that sort was in old days 
set up near it, while a great fall of timber was felled in it’s 
neighbourhood. 
After a mild, wet winter we have experienced a very harsh, 
backward spring with nothing but N. & Y.E. winds. All the 
Hir undines except the sand-martins were very tardy; & do not 
seem even yet to make any advances towards breeding. As to 
the sand-martins they were seen playing in & out of their holes 
in a sand-cliff as early as April 9th. Hence I am confirmed in 
what I have long suspected, that they are the most early species. 
I did not write the letter in the Gent. Mag. against the torpidity 
of swallows : nor would it be consistent with what I have sometimes 
asserted, so to do. As to your recent proof of their torpidity in 
Yorkshire, I long to see it. But as much writing is sometimes 
irksome, cannot You call in occasionally some young person to be 
your Amanuensis? 
There has been no such summer as this, so cold & so dry, I 
can roundly assert, since the year 1765. We have had no rain 
since the last week in April, & the two first days in May. 
Hence our grass is short, & our spring-corn languishes. Our 
wheat, which is not easily injured in strong ground by drought, 
looks well. The hop-planters begin to be solicitous about their 
plantations. Here I shall presume to correct (with all due defer- 
ence) an expression of the great Philosopher Dr Durham. Ho 
says in his Physico-theology, “ that all cold summers are wot : ” 
whereas be should have said most. 
Have You seen Arthur Young’s “ Example of France a warn- 
