HOPS.-The culture of Virgil's vines corresponded very exactly with the modern management of hops. I might instance in the perpetual diggings and hoeings, in the tying to the stakes and poles, in pruning the superfluous shoots, &c.; but lately I have observed a new circumstance, which was, a neighbouring farmer's harrowing between the rows of hops with a small triangular harrow, drawn by one horse, and guided by two handles. This occurrence brought to my mind the following passage :

"ipsa

Flectere luctantes inter vineta juvencos."

Georgic II.

The struggling steers between the vine-rows bend.

Hops are diœcious plants: hence, perhaps, it might be proper, though not practised, to leave purposely some male plants in every garden, that their farina might impregnate the blossoms. The female plants, without their male attendants, are not in their natural state: hence we may suppose the frequent failure of crop so incident to hopgrounds. No other growth, cultivated by man, has such frequent and general failures as hops.

Two hop-gardens much injured by a hail-storm, June 5, show now (September 2) a prodigious crop, and larger and fairer hops than any in the parish. The owners seem now to be convinced that the hail by beating off the tops of the binds has increased the side-shoots, and improved the crop. Query. Therefore, should not the tops of hops be pinched off when the binds are very gross and strong? WHITE.

SEED LYING DORMANT.-The naked part of the Hanger is now covered with thistles of various kinds. The seeds of these thistles may have lain probably under the thick shade of the beeches for many years, but could not vegetate till the sun and air were admitted. When old beech-trees are cleared away, the naked ground, in a year or two, becomes covered with strawberry plants, the seeds of which must have lain in the ground for an age at least. One of the slidders, or trenches, down the middle of the Hanger, close covered over with lofty beeches near a century old, is still called strawberry-slidder, though no strawberries have grown

ΑΛ

there in the memory of man. That sort of fruit did once, no doubt abound there, and will again, when the obstruction is removed.* WHITE.

BEANS SOWN BY BIRDS.-Many horse-beans sprang up in my field-walks in the autumn, and are now grown to a considerable height. As the Ewel was in beans last summer, it is most likely that these seeds came from thence; but then the distance is too considerable for them to have been conveyed by mice. It is most probable, therefore, that they were brought by birds, and, in particular, by jays and pies, who seem to have hid them among the grass and moss, and then to have forgotten where they had stowed them. Some peas are growing also in the same situation, and probably under the same circumstances. WHITE.

CUCUMBERS SET BY BEES.-If bees, who are much the best setters of cucumbers, do not happen to take kindly to the frames, the best way is to tempt them by a little honey, put on the meal and female bloom. When they are once induced to haunt the frames, they set all the fruit, and will hover with impatience round the lights in a morning, till the glasses are opened. Proved by experience.

WHITE.

WHEAT. A notion has always obtained, that, in England, hot summers are productive of fine crops of wheat; yet in the years 1780 and 1781, though the heat was intense, the wheat was much mildewed, and the crop light. Does not severe heat, while the straw is milky, occasion its juices to exude, which being extravasated, occasion spots, discolour the stems and blades, and injure the health of the plants? WHITE.

TRUFFLES.-August.-A truffle-hunter called on us,

* In breaking up old turf in making plantations in the royal parks, and which probably had not been disturbed for centuries, I have had several opportunities of observing the vegetation of plants which had not previously been observed in the neighbourhood. For instance, in Bushy Park, heart'sease, and the tree mignonette (reseda luteola) appeared in abundance. I also saw the blue columbine in a plantation in Devonshire.-ED.

having in his pocket several large truffles found in this neighbourhood. He says, these roots are not to be found in deep woods, but in narrow hedge-rows and the skirts of coppices. Some truffles, he informed us, lie two feet within the earth, and some quite on the surface; the latter, he added, have little or no smell, and are not so easily discovered by the dogs as those that lie deeper. Half-a-crown a pound was the price which he asked for this commodity.

Truffles never abound in wet winters and springs. They are in season, in different situations, at least nine months in the year. WHITE.

TREMELLA NOSTOC.-Though the weather may have been ever so dry and burning, yet, after two or three wet days, this jelly-like substance abounds on the walks.

WHITE.

FAIRY RINGS.—The cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy rings, subsists in the turf, and is conveyable with it; for the turf of my garden-walks, brought from the down above, abounds with those appearances, which vary their shape, and shift situation continually, discovering themselves now in circles, now in segments, and sometimes in irregular patches and spots. Wherever they obtain, puff-balls abound; the seeds of which were doubtless brought in the turf.

WHITE.

Mr. Herbert says that many years ago an immense stock of very small truffles crowded together under a young cedar-tree upon the lawn near Lord Carnarvon's charming seat at Highclere. The experiment of transplanting several of these and setting them under beech-trees, was tried successfully. They increased in size, and became much finer than those which were left.-ED.

In those years when there is a failure of mushrooms, there is generally a failure of truffles, so that some secret cause influences alike these analogous productions of nature.—ED.

The fungi tribe, from their circular shape, shed their seed in a circle around them. This in time produces regular circles or segments. The freshness of the grass is probably produced by the moisture derived from the fungi. A man on the Brighton downs who was employed in digging for flints, assured me that when he worked under a fairy ring he never could perceive any difference in the sub-soil.-ED.

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

BAROMETER.-November 22, 1768.-A remarkable fall of the barometer all over the kingdom. At Selborne, we had no wind, and not much rain; only vast, swagging, rock-like clouds appeared at a distance. WHITE.

PARTIAL FROST.-The country people, who are abroad in winter mornings long before sun-rise, talk much of hard frost in some spots, and none in others. The reason of these partial frosts is obvious, for there are at such times partial fogs about where the fog obtains, little or no frost appears; but where the air is clear, there it freezes hard. So the frost takes place either on hill or in dale, wherever the air happens to be clearest and freest from vapour.

WHITE.

THAW.-Thaws are sometimes surprisingly quick, considering the small quantity of rain. Does not the warmth at such times come from below? The cold in still, severe seasons, seems to come down from above: for the coming over of a cloud in severe nights raises the thermometer abroad at once full ten degrees. The first notices of thaws often seem to appear in vaults, cellars, &c.

If a frost happens, even when the ground is considerably dry, as soon as a thaw takes place the paths and fields are all in a batter. Country people say that the frost draws moisture. But the true philosophy is, that the steam and vapours continually ascending from the earth, are bound in by the frost, and not suffered to escape, till released by the thaw. No wonder, then, that the surface is all in a float; since the quantity of moisture by evaporation that arises daily from every acre of ground is astonishing. WHITE.

FROZEN SLEET.-January 20.-Mr. H.'s man says, that he caught this day, in a lane near Hackwood-park, many rooks, which, attempting to fly, fell from the trees with their

wings frozen together by the sleet that froze as it fell. There were, he affirms, many dozen so disabled. WHITE.

MIST, CALLED LONDON SMOKE.-This is a blue mist, which has somewhat the smell of coal-smoke, and as it always comes to us with a north-east wind, is supposed to come from London. It has a strong smell, and is supposed to occasion blights. When such mists appear, they are usually followed by dry weather. WHITE.

REFLECTION ON FOG.*-When people walk in deep white fog by night with a lantern, if they will turn their backs to the light, they will see their shades impressed on the fog in rude gigantic proportions. This phenomenon seems not to have been attended to, but implies the great density of the meteor at that juncture. WHITE.

HONEY DEW.†-June 4, 1783.-Vast honey dews this week. The reason of these seems to be, that in hot days the effluvia of flowers are drawn up by brisk evaporation, and then in the night fall down with the dews, with which they are entangled.

This clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who gather it with great assiduity; but it is injurious to the trees on which it happens to fall, by stopping the pores of the leaves, The greatest quantity falls in still, close weather; because winds disperse it, and copious dews dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. It falls mostly in hazy, warm weather. WHITE.

* The country people look with a kind of superstitious awe at the red lowering aspect of the sun through a fog. "Cum caput obscurâ nitidum ferrugine texit."-MR. WHITE'S MSS.-ED.

Honey-dew is the exuvia of insects. They are little green aphides and harbour under the leaves of trees, from whence their dew is dropped on the leaves below. This is collected by bees and ants; the latter are very careful not to injure the insect, as I have frequently observed. It seems extraordinary that so observant a naturalist as Mr. White should have been ignorant of this circumstance. He mentions in one of his MSS. that one of his trees was covered with aphides and viscous honey-dews.—ED.

It will hardly be deemed a discredit to an observer so patient, so accurate, and so faithful, as Mr. White, to mention, that his conjecture concerning the origin of honey-dew is erroneous; the subject has been elucidated by the observations of Mr. William Curtis, who has discovered it to be the "excrement of the aphides." See Transact. of the Linnæan Society, vol. vi No. 4.-MITFORD.