The Natural History of Selborne

Cut ten cucumbers.

Cut five cucumbers.

Planted in the garden 2 codling-trees, 2 damson-trees, & 22 goose-berry trees, sent me by Bror. T. W.

Planted 3 quarters of an hundred more cabbages to stand the winter: dug-up potatoes; those in the garden large, & fine, those in the meadow small, & rotting.

Planted 100 of cabbages, in ground well dunged, to stand the winter.

Grass grows on the walks very fast.  Garden beans at an end.

My large American Juniper, probably Juniperus Virginiana, has produced this summer a few few small blossoms of a strong flavour like that of the juniper-berries: but I could not distinguish whether the flowers were male, or female; so consequently could not determine the sex of the tree, which is dioecious.  The order is dioecia monadelphia.

Thomas, in mowing the walks, finds that the grass begins to grow weak, & to yield before the scythe. This is an indication of the decline of heat. Yucca filamentosa, silk grass, glows with a fine large white flower. It thrives abroad in a warm aspect. Habitat in Virginia.

My shrub, Rhus cotinus, known to the nursery-men by the title of Cocygria, makes this summer a peculiar shew, being covered all over with it’s “bracteae paniculae filiformes,” which give it a feathery plume-like appearance, very amusing to those that have not seen it before.  On the extremities of these panicles appear about midsumer a minute white bloom which with us brings no seeds to perfection.  Towards the end of August the panicles turn red & decay.

The double roses rot in the bud without blowing out: an instance this of the coldness, & wetness of the summer.  Potatoes blossom.