The Natural History of Selborne

A Faringdon man shot a young fern-owl in his orchard.

Sad harvest weather.  This proves a very expensive, & troublesome harvest to the farmers.  Pease suffer much & will be lost out of the pod.  My great apricot-tree appeared in the morning to have been robbed of some of it’s ripe fruit by a dog that had stood on his hind legs, & eaten-off some of the lower apricots, several of which were gnawn, & left on the ground, with some shoots of the tree.  On the border were many fresh prints of a dogs feet.  I have know a dog eat ripe goose-berries, as they hung on the trees.  Many wallnuts on the tree over the stable: the sort is good, but the tree seldom bears.

White turnip-radishes mild, & good, & large.

On this day my Niece Brown was delivered of her 4th child, a girl, which makes the 41st of my nephews & nieces now living.  Boiled up some apricots with sugar to preserve them.

Spinage very thick on the ground.  Men hoe turnips, stir their fallows, & cart chalk.

Farmer Spencer, & farmer Knight are forced to stop their reapers, because their wheat ripens so unevenly.

Women bring cran-berries, but they are not ripe.

Plums show no tendency to ripeness.  Scalded codlings come in.  The wheat that was smitten by the hail does not come to maturity together: some ears are full ripe, & some quite green.  Wheat within the verge of the hail-storm is much injured, & the pease are spoiled.  A puff-ball, lycoperdon bovista, was gathered in a meadow near Alton, which weighed 7 pounds, & an half, & measured 1 Yard and One Inch in girth the longest way 3 feet two inches.  There were more in the mead almost as bulky as this.

Wheat housing at Heards.

Mr & Mrs Mulso, &c., left us.