The Natural History of Selborne

A cuckoo cries in my Brors garden: some birds of that sort have frequented this place all the summer.  Young swallows at Stockewell.  In Mr Malcolm’s garden there is a bed of small silver firs, the tops of which are all killed by the frosts in June.  The hothouses of this Gent. afford a most noble appearance; & his plantations are grand, & splendid.  Passion-flower begins to blow in the open air.  Cucumbers are scarce, & sell for 2 1/2 d. a piece. Crops of pease go off.  Some cleri trenched out form the seedling bed.

Snails come out of hedges after their long confinement from the drought.  A swallow in Tanner’s chimney has hatched.  The fern on the forest is killed; but hardly touched by the frost on Selborne down, which is 400 feet higher than Wolmer.

Rime on the hanger.

The wind & frost cut down the wheat, which seems to want a mantle of snow.

The plows have been stopped by the frost some days.  Men cart earth & dung for their hop-grounds.  Covered the lettuces, artichokes, spinage, & celeri with straw.  Took in the urns.

Frost comes within door: ice in the pantry, & chambers.

A pair of fly-catchers build in my vines.  The late frost did much damage at Fyfield, but little or none at Selborne.  My potatoes, kidney-beans, & nasturtiums were not injured: some balsoms, that touched the glasses, were scorched.

A poor gardener in this parish who had three acres of kidney-beans, has lost them all by the frost of last week! Hay finely made, & making. The rudiments of the vine-bloom does not seem to be injured by the late frost.

The yew-hedges at the vicarage half-killed by the winter.  My tall hedges are much injured by the severity of last winter: many boughs are killed, & the foliage in general is thin.

Nasturtiums in high bloom, & untouched by the frost!