The Natural History of Selborne

The quantity of haws is prodigious!

Mended the planks of the zigzag.  Bro. Tho. White sowed the naked part of the hanger with great quantities of hips, haws, sloes, & holly-berries.  In May last he sowed a pound of furze seeds on the same naked space; many of which appear to have grown: & lately he sowed two pounds more.  *added note:  Decembr 1790.  As fast as any of these seeds have sprouted, they have constantly been brouzed off, & bitten down by the sheep, which lie very hard on them, & will not suffer them to thrive.

Woodcock seen on the down, among the fern.  Finished gathering the apples, many of which are fair fruit.  Shoveled the zigzag.  Leaves fall.  My wall-nut trees, & some ashes are naked.

Gathered in nonpareils, & some royal russets.

Fierce, driving rain!

Colchicums, a fine double sort, still in bloom.  Ivy blows.  Some mushrooms with thick stems, & pale gills.

Mackerel sky.  A wheat-ear seen on the down.

A trufle-hunter called on us, having in his pocket several large trufles found in this neighbourhood.  He says these roots are not to be found in deep woods, but in narrow hedge rows & the skirts of coppices.  Some trufles, he informed us, lie two feet within the earth; & some quite on the surface: the latter, he added, have little or no smell, & are not so easily discovered by the dogs as those that lie deeper.  Half a crown a pound was the price which he asked for this commodity.  Some few bunches of grapes just eatable.  Some of the latter nectarines well-flavoured.  On this day, Dr Chandler saw several swallows, flying as usual, near Cologne: he had observed none at Rolle since the beginning of September, nor none on his way to Cologne.  On the 12, in his way to Brussels, he saw more.

Two hop-waggons return with loads of woollen rags, to be spread & dug in as manure for the hop-gardens.

Many loads of hops set-out for wey hill.