given to a whole circle of
people.

I forgot to mention before, that, during the two severe days, two men,
who were tracing hares in the snow, had their feet frozen, and two men,
who were much better employed, had their fingers so affected by the
frost, while they were thrashing in a barn, that a mortification
followed, from which they did not recover for many weeks.

This frost killed all the furze and most of the ivy, and in many places
stripped the hollies of all their leaves. It came at a very early time
of the year, before old November ended; and yet may be allowed from its
effects to have exceeded any since 1730-40.

LETTER LXIV.

As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in the northerly
climate of England, where the summers are often so defective in warmth
and sunshine as not to ripen the fruits of the earth so well as might be
wished, I shall be more concise in my account of the severity of a summer
season, and so make a little amends for the prolix account of the degrees
of cold, and the inconveniences that we suffered from some late rigorous
winters.

The summers of 1781 and 1783 were unusually hot and dry; to them
therefore I shall turn back in my journals, without recurring to any more
distant period. In the former of these years my peach and nectarine
trees suffered so much from the heat that the rind on the bodies was
scalded and came off; since which the trees have been in a decaying
state. This may prove a hint to assiduous gardeners to fence and shelter
their wall-trees with mats or boards, as they may easily do, because such
annoyance is seldom of long continuance. During that summer also, I
observed that my apples were coddled, as it were, on the trees; so that
they had no quickness of flavour, and would not keep in the winter. This
circumstance put me in mind of what I have heard travellers assert, that
they never ate a good apple or apricot in the south of Europe, where the
heats were so great as to render the juices vapid and insipid.

The great pests of a garden are wasps, which destroy all the finer fruits
just as they are coming into perfection. In 1781 we had none; in 1783
there were myriads, which would have devoured all the produce of my
garden, had not we set the boys to take the nests, and caught thousands
with hazel-twigs tipped with bird-lime: we have since employed the boys
to take and destroy the large breeding wasps in the spring. Such
expedients have a gre