The Natural History of Selborne

Cut-off the cones of the balm of Gilead fir in such numbers that they measured one gallon & a half. So much fruit would have exhausted a young tree. The cones grow sursum, upright; those of the Spruce, deorsum, downward.

The mare lies out.  St foin begins to blow.

One Fly-catcher builds in the Virginia Creeper, over the garden-door: & one in the vine over the parlor-window. Between Newton & us we heard three Fern-owls chattering on the hill; one at the side of the High-wood, one at the top of the Bostal, & one near the Hermitage. That at the top of the Bostal is heard distinctly in my orchard. Fern-owls haunt year by year nearly the same spots.

Hay making about London.

No may-chafers this year.  The intermediate flowers, which now figure between the spring, & solstitial, are the early orange, & fiery-lily, the columbine, the early honey-suckle, the peony, the garden red valeriam, the double rocket or dames violet, the broad blue flag-iris, the thrift, the double lychnis, spider-wort, monks-hood, &c.

Mushrooms are brought to the door.

Mr. & Mrs. Ben White left us, & went to Newton.

Grass grows very fast.  Honey-suckles very fragrant, & most beautiful objects!  Columbines make a figure.  My white thorn, which hangs over the earth-house, is now one sheet of bloom, & has pendulous boughs down to the ground.  One of my low balm of Gilead firs begins to throw out a profusion of cones;  a token this that it will be a short-lived, stunted tree.  One that I planted in my shrubbery began to decay at 20 years of age.  Miller in his gardener’s Dictionary mentions the short continuance  of this species of fir, & cautions people against depending on them as a permanent tree for ornamental plantations.

My table abounds with lettuces, that have stood the winter; radishes; spinage; cucumbers; with a moderate crop of asparagus.

The missel-thrush has got young.