The Natural History of Selborne

A man brought me a large plate of straw-berries, which were crude, & not near ripe.  The ground all as hard as iron: we can sow nothing nor plant out.

The young Bantam hen brought out only three chickens.  Showers that wetted the blades of corn, & grass, but did not descend to the root.  Ground very hard.

Watered well the white poplar at the foot of the bostal. Cut the slope hedge in the Bakers hill.  Mrs. Clement, & children came.

Sowed two rows of large white kidney-beans: but the ground is so hard, that it required much labour to make it fit to receive the seed.  The old Bantam brought out only three chickens.

The ground sadly burnt up.  Royal russets show much bloom.  Summer cabbage comes in.

My weeding-woman swept up on the grass-plot a bushel-basket of blossoms from the white apple-tree: & yet that tree seems still covered with bloom.

Mushrooms are brought to the door.

Grass grows very fast.  Honey-suckles very fragrant, & most beautiful objects!  Columbines make a figure.  My white thorn, which hangs over the earth-house, is now one sheet of bloom, & has pendulous boughs down to the ground.  One of my low balm of Gilead firs begins to throw out a profusion of cones;  a token this that it will be a short-lived, stunted tree.  One that I planted in my shrubbery began to decay at 20 years of age.  Miller in his gardener’s Dictionary mentions the short continuance  of this species of fir, & cautions people against depending on them as a permanent tree for ornamental plantations.

My table abounds with lettuces, that have stood the winter; radishes; spinage; cucumbers; with a moderate crop of asparagus.

Hops grow prodigiously, yet are infested with some aphides.  Early cabbages turn hard, but boil well.  Watered kidney-beans, which come-up well.