The Natural History of Selborne

Mrs Ben White, by being delivered of a boy this morning, has encreased my nephews, & nieces to the number of 46.

The fallows of good husbandmen are in a fine crumbling state, & very clean.  Sowed a crop of prickly-seeded spinage to stand the winter: the ground was very hard & cloddy, & would not rake; so we levelled it down as well as we could with a garden-roller, & sprinkled it over with fine, dustly mould to cover the seeds.

The poor begin to glean wheat.  The country looks very rich, being finely diversifyed with crops of corn of various sorts, & colours.

Some hop-gardens injured by the wind of yesterday. Arichokes so dried-up that they do not head well.

Plums fail in all gardens.  The sharp wind soon dries the surface of the ground.  The wind damages the flowers, & blows down the apples, & pears.

Saw a nightingale.  Stifling dust.

Pease are hacked: rye is reaping: turnips thrive & are hoing.

Mr Richardson’s garden abounds with all sorts of crops, & with many sorts of fruits.  His sandy soil produces an abundance of every thing; & does not burn in droughts like the clays, which are now bound-up so as to injure the growth of all garden matters.  The watered meadows at Bramshot flourish & ook green, the uplands grass is much scorched.  Mr R. has a pretty good show of Nectarines.

Oaks put-out their midsummer shoots, some of which are red, & some yellow; & those oaks that were stripped by caterpillars begin to be cloathed with verdure.  Many beeches are loaded with mast, so that their boughs become very pendulous, & look brown, I see no acorns.  Selborne down is very rusty: the pond still is one part in three in water.

Gathered & preserved some Rasps.