The Natural History of Selborne

Thermometer at Mr Alexander’s– 87 on a N. wall; at S. wall near.  Fruit-walls in the sun are so hot that I cannot bear my hand on them.  Bror Thos’ thermr was 89 on an E. wall in the afternoon.

*Much damage done, & some persons killed by lightening on this sultry day.  My Bro. Thos’s thermr in Blackfriars road against an eastern wall in the afternoon was 89.  My thermomr after the sun was got round upon it, was 100: Thomas forgot to look in time.

The heats are so great, & the night so sultry, that we spoil joints of meat, in spite all the care that can be taken.

Burning sun.  Workmen complain of the heat.

Acorns abound, & help poor men’s hogs.  “There has lately been felt in diverse parts of Hungary so extraordinary a heat, that the husband-men could only work in the night.  All the snow that has covered the Carpathian mountains for more than a century is entirely melted.”  St. James Chronicle

The distress for water in many places is great.  A notion has always obtained, that in England hot summers are productive of fine crops of wheat: yet in the years 1780, and 1781, tho’ the heat was intense, the wheat was much mildewed, & the crop light.  Quaere, Does not severe heat, while the straw is milky, occasion it’s juices to exsude, which being extravasted, occasion spots, discolour the stems & blades, & injure the health of the plants?  The heat of the two last summers has scalded & scorched the stems of the wall-fruit trees, & has fetched-off the bark.

Therm. 79!  The grass-mowers complain of the heat.

We have never had rain enough to lay the dust since saturday June 13: now five weeks.  By watering the fruit-trees we have procured much young wood.  The thermometer belonging to my brother Thomas White of South Lambeth was in the most shady part of his garden on July 5th & July 14th: up at 88, a degree of heat not very common even at Gibraltar!! July 5: Thermr at Lyndon in Rutland 85.

Wheat begins to be cut. Not a breath of air.  The nights are hot.

Large flock of of goldfinches.  The sun is very hot.  The air is full of spider’s webs.