where the heats were fo great as to render the juices vapid and
infipid.
The great pefts of a garden are wafps, which deftroy all the
finer fruits juft 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 fet the boys to?
take the nefts, and caught thoufands with hazel-twigs tipped with
bird-lime : we have fince employed the boys to take and deftroy
V the large breeding wafps in the fpring. Such expedients have a
great effedt on thefe marauders, and'will keep them under.. Though
wafps do not abound but in hot fummers, yet they do not prevail'
in every hot fummer, as. I have inftanced in the two years above-
mentioned.
In the fultry feafon o f '1783 Honey-dews were fo frequent as to
deface and deftroy the beauties of my garden. My honeyfuckles,
which were one week the mod fweet and lovely objedts that the.-
eye could behold, became the next the molb loathlbme; being
enveloped in a vifcous fubftance, and loaded'with black aphides,,
or fmother-flies. The occafion of this clammy appearance feems'
to be this, that in hot weather the effluvia of flowers in fields and-
meadows and gardens are drawn up in the day by a brilk evapora-.
tion, and then in the night fall down again with the dews, in which
they are entangled ; that the air is ftrongly fcented, and therefore
impregnated with the particles o f flowers in fummer weather, our
fenfes will inform us; and that this clammy fweet fubftance is of
the vegetable kind we may learn from bees, to whom it is very ,
grateful: and we may be allured that it falls in the night, becaufe;
it is always firft feen in. warm ftill mornings.
On
On chalky and Tandy foils, and in the hot villages about London,
the thermometer has been often obferved to mount as high as 83
or 84; but with us,; in this hilly and woody diftridt, I have hardly
ever feen it exceed 80 ; nor does it often arrive at that pitch.
The reafon, I conclude,: is, that our denfe clayey foil, fo much
fhaded by trees, is .not fo eafily heated through as thofe above-
mentioned : and, befides,: our mountains caufe currents of air and
breezes; and the vaft effluvia from our woodlands temper and
moderate our heats.
L E T T E R LXIV.
TO THE SAME.
T he fummer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous
one, and full of horrible phtenomena; for, befides the alarming
meteors and tremendous thunder-ftorms that affrighted and dif-
treffed the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze,
or fmokey fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this illand, and
in every part of Europe, and even beyond it’s limits, was a moft
extraordinary appearance, unlike any thing known within the
memory of man. By my journal I find that I had noticed this
ftrange occurrence from June 23 to July 20 inclufive, during which
period the wind varied to every quarter without making any alteration.