ground without any drifting, wrapping up the more humble
vegetation in perfect security. From the first day to the fifth of the
new year more snow succeeded; but from that day the air became
entirely clear; and the heat of the sun about noon had a
considerable influence in sheltered situations.

It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author's evergreens
was melted every day, and frozen intensely every night; so that the
laurustines, bays, laurels, and arbutuses looked, in three or four
days, as if they had been burnt in the fire; while a neighbour's
plantation of the same kind, in a high cold situation, where the
snow was never melted at all, remained uninjured.

From hence I would infer that it is the repeated melting and
freezing of the snow that is so fatal to vegetation, rather than the
severity of the cold. Therefore it highly behaves every planter, who
wishes to escape the cruel mortification of losing in a few days the
labour and hopes of years, to bestir himself on such emergencies;
and, if his plantations are small, to avail himself of mats, cloths,
pease-haum, straw, reeds, or any such covering, for a short time;
or, if his shrubberies are extensive, to see that his people go about
with prongs and forks, and carefully dislodge the snow from the
boughs, since the naked foliage will shift much better for itself,
than where the snow is partly melted and frozen again.

It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox; but doubtless the
more tender trees and shrubs should never be planted in hot
aspects; not only for the reason assigned above, but also because,
thus circumstanced, they are disposed to shoot earlier in the spring,
and grow on later in the autumn than they would otherwise do, and