The Natural History of Selborne

Uncrested wrens seem to be withdrawn.  Mr Richardson’s wall fruit at Bramshot-place is not good-flavoured, nor well-ripened & his vines are so injured by the cold, black summer, as not to be able to produce any fruit, or good wood for next year.  Mr Dennis’s vines at Bramshot also are in poor state.

My Nep. Edmund White launched a balloon on our down, made of a soft, thin paper; & measuring about two feet & a half in length, & 20 inches in diameter. The buoyant air was supplyed at bottom by a plug of wooll, wetted with spirits ofwine, & set on fire by a candle. The air being cold & moist this machine did not succeed well abroad; but in Mr Yalden’s stair-case it rose to the ceiling, & remained suspended as long as the spirits continued to flame, & then sunk gradually. These Gent. made the balloon themselves. This small exhibition explained the whole balloon affair very well: but the position of the flame wanted better regulation; because the least oscillation set the paper on fire. Golden weather, red even.

Farmer Town began to pick his hops: the hops are many, but small.  They were not smitten by the hail. Because they grew at S.E. end of the village.  Hopping begins at Hartley.  The two hop-gardens, belonging to Farmer Spencer & John Hale, that were so much injured, as it was supposed, by the hail-storm on June 5th shew now a prodigious crop, & larger & fairer hops than any in the parish.  The owners seem now to be convinced that the hail, by beating off the tops of the binds, has encreased the side-shoots, & improved the crop.  Query:  should not the tops of hops be pinched-off when the binds are very gross, & strong?  We find this practice to be of great service with melons, & cucumbers.  The scars, & wounds on the binds, made by the great hailstones are still very visible.

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.