PECULIARITIES OB' 
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up; large forest trees, especially the elm, had their 
leaves so scorched by the sun, that they fell from their 
sprays as in autumn, rustling along the ground ; the 
larch became perfectly deciduous. In our gardens, the 
havoc occasioned by the heat was very manifest. The 
fruit of the gooseberry, burnt up before maturity, hung 
shrivelled upon the leafless bushes ; the strawberry and 
raspberry quite withered away ; the stalk of the early 
potato was perfectly destroyed, and the tubers near the 
surface in many places became roasted and sodden by 
the heat, few obtaining their natural size, and sold at 
this period in the Bristol market at twenty-four shillings 
the sack. A few choice plants were saved by watering 
them daily ; but in general the exhalation from the foli- 
age, by reason of the heat of the earth, was greater 
than the root could supply, the green parts withering as 
if seared by a frost. 
On the 20th of July, some farmers began to cut their 
wheat; and by the 25th reaping had generally com- 
menced. Our bean crop presented, perhaps, an unpre- 
cedented instance of early ripeness, being usually 
mowed in September ; but this year it was universally 
ripe, indeed more perfectly so than the wheat, by the 
1st of August. The crop, however, proved a defective 
one : water became scarce, and the herbage of the fields 
afforded so little nutriment, that the cows nearly lost 
their milk, eight or ten being milked into a pail that 
four should have filled; and one week, from July the 
18th to the 24th, butter could not be made to harden, 
but remained a soft oleaginous mass. 
This extreme heat had a favorable influence on many 
of our exotic plants, enabling several to perfect their 
seed, which do not usually in our climate ; such as night- 
stocks, erodiums, heliotrope, groundsels, cape-asters, 
and such green-house plants vegetating in the open air. 
With me all the polyanthus tribe, especially the double 
varieties, suffered greatly; lovers of the cold and mois- 
ture of a northern climate, in this tropic heat, they be- 
came so parched as never properly to recover their ver- 
dure, and in the ensuing spring I missed these gay and 
pleasing flowers in my borders. 
