The Natural History of Selborne

Mr. Ed. White & man brought a good fine young white poplare from his out-let at Newton, & planted it at ye top of Parson’s, slip behind the bench, where it will be ornamental.

Put a large cross on the hermitage.  A trufle-hunter tryed my tall hedges, & found some bulbs of those peculiar plants, which have neither roots, nor branches, nor stems.

My tall beech in Sparrow’s hanger, which measured 50 feet to the first fork, & 42 afterwards, is just 6 feet in girth at 2 feet above the ground.  At the back of Burhant house, in an abrupt field which inclines towards nightingale-lane, stand four noble beech-trees on the edge of a steep ravin or water gully the largest of which measures 9 ft. 5. in. at about a yard from the ground.  This ravin runs with a strong torrent in winter from nightingale-lane, but is dry in the summer.  The beeches above are now the finest remaining in the neighbourhood, & carry fine heads.  There is a romantic, perennial spring in this gully, that might be rendered very ornamental was it situated in a gentleman’s outlet.

My horses taken into the stable & not to lie out any more a nights.  New coped the top of my kitchen-chimney, mended the tiling, & toached the inside of the roofing to keep out the drifting snow.

Bror Th. W. sows laburnum seed on the hanger, & down.  A wood-cock killed in the high wood.

Mended the planks of the zigzag.  Bro. Tho. White sowed the naked part of the hanger with great quantities of hips, haws, sloes, & holly-berries.  In May last he sowed a pound of furze seeds on the same naked space; many of which appear to have grown: & lately he sowed two pounds more.  *added note:  Decembr 1790.  As fast as any of these seeds have sprouted, they have constantly been brouzed off, & bitten down by the sheep, which lie very hard on them, & will not suffer them to thrive.

Woodcock seen on the down, among the fern.  Finished gathering the apples, many of which are fair fruit.  Shoveled the zigzag.  Leaves fall.  My wall-nut trees, & some ashes are naked.

Finished shovelling the zigzag, & bostal.  Wildfowl on Wolmer-pond.

Meridian line & dial accord well.

Set up again my stone dial, blown down many years ago, on a thick Portland-slap in the angle of the terrass.  The column is very old, came from Sarson house near Amport, & was hewn from the quarries of Chilmarke.  The dial was regulated by my meridian line.