RELICS OF FROST.
Even yet, a fortnight after its occurrence, and in weather of the rarest warmth and serenity, we come both in garden and field upon relic victims of the April frosts. They were the most deadly for the last twenty years and more. In some places the eggs of all the ground-nesting birds were killed ; and the loss is the greater because the birds are often unaware of the disaster. They continue to sit on eggs that can never hatch. The owner of one estate in the North, where 21 degrees were registered, has given orders for the destruction of every discoverable grouse's nest. The grouse's period of incubation is twenty-one days ; and the only hope for the birds is to start laying another clutch with all convenient speed. In my own garden I find that even the smaller unopened buds of apple and strawberry were killed not less completely, sometimes more completely, than the opened flowers. Only one tree—of that invaluable apple, mea sententia, Coronation---was proof against the attack. It would be interesting to know if it owes this immunity at all to any special vigour in the variety. The tree in question was not better protected than its neighbours.
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