Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/453

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

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 pease are growing also in the same situation, and probably under the same circumstances.—.

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 male 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. Probatum est.—.

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?—.