The Natural History of Selborne

The potatoe-shoots, that were cut-down by the frost, all spring again; the kidney-beans do not.  Lighted a fire in the parlor.

Serapias latiflolia begins to bloom in the hanger. The Serapias’s transplanted last summer from the hanger to my garden , grow and thrive. Mr Beeke returned.

Ophrys nidus avis, many in bloom in the hanger, along the side of ye Bostal.

Soft rain all days.  Snails come forth in troops.  Mr. Beeke came from Oxford.

Wych-elm sheds it’s seeds, which are innumerable.

The potatoes, killed-down by the frost, shoot again.

Tulips are faded. Honey-suckles still in beauty. My columbines are very beautiful: tyed some of the stems with pieces of worsted, to mark them for seed. Planted-out pots of green cucumbers. Dr Derham says, that all cold summers are wet summers: & the reason he gives is that rain is the effect and not the cause of cold. But with all due deference to that great Philosopher, I think, he should rather have said, that most cold summers are dry; For it is certain that sometimes cold summers are dry; as for example, this very summer hitherto: & in the summer 1765 the weather was very dry, & very cool. See Physico-theol: p: 22. Vast honey-dews this week. The reason of these seems to be, that in hot days the effluvia of flowers are drawn-up by a brisk evaporation; and then in the night fall down with the dews, with which they are entangled. This very clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who gather it with great assiduity, but it is injurious to the trees on which it happens to fall, by stopping the pores of the leaves. The greatest quantity falls in still, close weather; beacuse winds disperse it, & copious dews dilute it, & prevent its ill effects. It falls mostly in hazey warm weather.

Hops are very lousy, & want a good shower.  Washed the cherry-trees against the wall with a white-wash brush:  they are full of aphides, but have a vast crop of fruit.

Cut the tall hedge down Baker’s hill.

Turned mould for future hot-bed. Showers about. Great rain at Farnham, Froil &c. Rain at London.