The Autumn Struggles Hard To
Produce Some Of Our Early Fruits.
I gathered gooseberries in
September; but they were small, and the husk was thick.
Their winter is seldom such as puts a full stop to the growth of
plants, or reduces the cattle to live wholly on the surplusage of
the summer. In the year Seventy-one they had a severe season,
remembered by the name of the Black Spring, from which the island
has not yet recovered. The snow lay long upon the ground, a
calamity hardly known before. Part of their cattle died for want,
part were unseasonably sold to buy sustenance for the owners; and,
what I have not read or heard of before, the kine that survived
were so emaciated and dispirited, that they did not require the
male at the usual time. Many of the roebucks perished.
The soil, as in other countries, has its diversities. In some
parts there is only a thin layer of earth spread upon a rock, which
bears nothing but short brown heath, and perhaps is not generally
capable of any better product. There are many bogs or mosses of
greater or less extent, where the soil cannot be supposed to want
depth, though it is too wet for the plow. But we did not observe
in these any aquatick plants. The vallies and the mountains are
alike darkened with heath. Some grass, however, grows here and
there, and some happier spots of earth are capable of tillage.
Their agriculture is laborious, and perhaps rather feeble than
unskilful.
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