254 WITHERING AND SEARING OF LEAVES. 
insignificant product, this hardly discernible plant, 
should endanger limb and life, and by circumstances 
become so formidable to us “ lords of the creation,” as 
to force us tp devise contrivances to counteract its inju- 
rious tendencies. 
There are times when we suffer here greatly by the 
withering and searing up as it were of the leaves of our 
vegetation, which we attribute generally to an early 
morning’s frost. That late spring frosts do occasion 
such injuries, and that noxious blasts, from causes which 
we cannot divine, occasion infinite annual mischief, if 
not destruction, to our wall fruit, is most manifest; yet 
there is great reason to suspect that a large portion of 
the injuries which we ascribe to blights, blasts, and 
frosts, are occasioned by saline sprays brought by strong 
western or south-western gales from King-road in the 
Bristol Channel, eight or ten miles distant, or from even 
more remote waters, and swept over the adjoining coun- 
try where the wind passes. This saline wind has often 
been suspected by me as the evil agent that accom- 
plishes most of our blightings here ; and on November 
the 3d, 1825, these suspicions were corroborated — for 
on this and the preceding days we had strong gales 
from the water, in consequence of which such windows 
as were situate to the west and south-west were skim- 
med over with a light saline scurf, the brass-work of 
the doors was corroded and turned green, painted works 
of all kinds were salt to the tongue, as was every thing 
that could condense the moisture ; and the leaves of the 
shrubs in the hedge-rows, and of trees, all turned brown, 
and were crisped up. A row of large elms in particular, 
that fronted the gale, received its full influence ; the 
whole of the windward side, then in full foliage, became 
perfectly brown and seared, and the leaves shortly after- 
wards parted from their sprays and left them bare ; 
while the other and sheltered side of the trees preserved 
its green foliage very slightly influenced by the spray 
that burned up the other. No period of the leafy sea- 
son is exempt from these pernicious effects, more or 
less, if the wind be sufficiently violent and blowing 
from the Avater. Portions of the country distant from 
