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fuffer in frofts, and that the loweft are in the moft frequent danger, There are, however, circumstances in which all equally, or rather the higher more than the lower, fuffer from freezing. I fhall touch on two cafes in which this takes place. 1. When the low vines, during a very fevere cold, are all buried in fnow; while the high are left naked, or are only sprinkled with fnow in the forks and curvatures, which melts at noon, wetting the branches, and is frozen again at night. 2. When, after long rains and warm winds, very fevere winds fucceed, prevailing rather in the upper than the lower regions of the air. The chance of vines, whatever be their pofition, is equal, 1. when the froft proceeds from an obftinate augmentation of the cold; 2. when the ice furprizes both the high and the low in a wet and unfheltered ftate.

The winter between the years 1785 and 1786 verified this laft cafe, to the grievous injury of the Placentine country. The examination, as well of the extraordinary courfe of the feafon, as of the effects of the froft on the vines, may ferve to corroborate my remarks concerning the concurrence of caufes which difpofe thefe plants to be injured.

Rains fell, almost continually, during the autumn and the beginning of winter, in 1785, and the fouth wind constantly reigned, keeping a kind of warmth in the air. Hence the trees preferved a good deal of juice, and were thoroughly wetted from the bottom to the top. A light fnow, which fell on Dec. 24th, foon melted, and only ferved to increase the foaking of the earth and vegetables. In this fituation, a fudden east wind on Jan. 4th greatly cooled the air, and brought a quantity of fnow, which, however, was not deep enough, except in the mountains, to bury the Placentine vines planted in rows. It was thought that its duration would be fhort, because it fell on bodies extremely moift: but the cold fuddenly increased, and froze the fnow and the ground beneath so strongly that they bore the trampling of horfes and the wheels of carriages. However, neither the Po, nor the great torrents which defcend from the mountains, were frozen over. After four days, the cold remitted, and never again became fo severe during the remainder of the winter.

Let us now see the effects of this extraordinary weather on the vines. All thofe that were buried, that is, thofe of the greater part of the plain in the dutchy; thofe immersed in the fnow among the mountains; and the few on the trellifes on the western fide of any wall; were preferved entirely uninjured, and produced abundance of fruit. The vines attached to trees, and thofe that grew fpontaneously along the hedges, as well as on the trellifes, facing the caft, almost all fuffered grievoufly and equally. The vines in rows of that portion of the Placentine plain which is nearest to the hills, where, as alfo on the hills, the custom of burying is not used; those of the wide vallies bordering the great torrents among the hills; and thofe placed on the ridges of hills towards the eaft, were all very greatly damaged, and always more in the richest fields, and those leaft protected from the eaft. On the contrary, on the hills facing the weft; in narrow and fheltered vallies ; in poor and chalky fields; the effects of this cruel froft were much lefs, and fcarcely perceptible.

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The difafter was foon rendered manifeft by the lividness of the eyes, and the clefts in the limbs, of the vines raised above the fnow; and when, fomewhat beyond the middle of January, the fnow was melted, all that portion of the tree appeared unhurt which, detached from the pole, was lying on the ground, although it had (prung from the injured lower limbs, and had been for several days immerfed in a hard ice. Thefe very branches, however, thus preferved on the lower fhoots damaged by the froft, in germinating bore very few grapes, and for the most part made fcanty fhoots; and in general they totally perished during the fucceeding fummer, and the following winter, though a mild one. Was this because these branches alfo fuffered fome fecret harm while buried in the ice, by which their organs were deranged or mortified in fome manner imperceptible to human fight? I am convinced of the contrary; and the general fafety and fecundity of the limbs lying, in a fimilar fituation, beneath vines not leis damaged, confirm my opinion. We must then attribute their inactivity and fucceffive death to the defect contracted from the lower limbs. It is known that diseased wood ufually communicates a torpidity to the furrounding limbs, and efpecially to those which are partially produced from it. This languor of vegetation is most fenfible in delicate plants. The clefts in the flender bodies of vines are not a flight difeafe, as they might be in the chefnut or oak. The free courfe of the fap impeded by the dry lips of the cleft, access given to the air now cold, now hot, and a lodgment afforded to the water in the cracks themfelves, are fufficient caufes for the premature death of a fhrub fo weakly formed. It may also happen that the mortification of the eyes, and the clefts in the wood, are not the only effects of the froft, though the only apparent confequences.

• M. Duhamel enumerates, among the confequences of froft to trees, the injury of the alburnum. This not entirely folid portion of the wood muft, indeed, be more penetrable to the cold than the mature and hardened part. It may also be reflected that, after having frozen, if a branch be cut across, a manifeft lividness is seen between the wood and the bark. Hence it is easy to conclude that the inner bark has been injured by the froft: but, in proportion to the different nature of the country, and the total or partial attack of the branch (for wood is often frozen only on one fide,) the effect of the froft may be rapid or flow, recoverable or mortal, juft as we fee happen to animals, in proportion to the unequal vitiation of the fluids, or laceration of the organs. The injury of the alburnum or inner bark, not fo foon perceivable, may have been able, either of itself, or in concurrence with other caufes, to occafion the withering of the vine. Without stopping, however, to difcufs this matter more fully, I fhall fatisfy myself with having demonftrated what are the principal circumftances which promote the effects of froft on vines, and with having proved that, in many fituations, the precaution of burying them is well founded.

I am not ignorant that many are of opinion that it is best to leave the vines expofed, in order to avoid fome danger in breaking, as well as the expence attendant on their interment; and they are perfuaded that, in fuch a fituation, they will accuftom themfelves fo well to re

fift the cold, that they will at length fuffer no detriment from it :--but I may obferve that the fig, the laurel, the pomegranate, the olive, by being always expofed, are yet not fo well inured to the cold as not to perish in Lombardy in certain rigorous feasons, and much more readily in the fertile plains; and I can discover no reason why vines fhould become better accustomed to it.

I fhall here take the liberty of deviating from the limits of the queftion, by fuggefting that the only expedient for recovering vines, which have been much injured by the froft, is to cut them down to the trunk, in the fame manner as when they have perished by the hail. It is vain to expect a ftrong and fruitful plant from the mere relics of an ill-difpofed vegetation, when the injured limbs are preferved. The deceitful hope of reaping fome product in the very fame year, and of fooner reftoring the vine by preferving its branches, has too often deluded our unwary and greedy farmers; while thofe who have cut down their vines to the quick have foon had them fpring up again fruitful and thriving. I readily admit, however, that, for a flight freezing in winter or fpring, when an untimely hoar-froft will fometimes chill the moving bud and the ftill herbaceous germs of the vines, it is fufficient to prune clofer, and to cut off a few more fhoots than ufual: but this rule is not to be extended to the cafe of a strong froft, which has done material injury. In the first cafe, the mafter bud and the tender extremities alone commonly fuffer. The counter-bud, more tardy, and often contributing nothing to the happy product of the mafter, fupplies its place when that is loft. In the fecond cafe, it is either itself injured, or fubfifts on limbs become unfit for properly nourishing the product. A remainder of life, feconded by the mild influence of the fpring, may indeed promote the germination of the buds but the germs, being fituated on unfound and difeafed wood, will be weak and fteril, and will often perish by the death of the branch from which they proceed.'

Since the symptoms of froft in trees proceed from the flighteft to the most important, by minute degrees, the danger of an erroneous judgment will always be great; nevertheless, if, on cutting across a fhoot in the fpring the natural colour between the wood and bark appears manifeftly altered, and if in the trunk and branches of the vine deep cracks fhew themselves, the author is of opinion that it ought, without hesitation, to be cut down to the ftem. These two marks he confiders as figns of a difeafe that is, for the most part, irreparable.

ART. IV. Sejour de Dix-Mois en France, &c. i.e. Ten Months' Refidence in France, by an Emigrant who could not get away from Toulon in December 1793, and who did not efcape from France till the Prifoners confined in Paris were enlarged in Auguft 1794. By the Comte DE C***. 8vo. Parts I. and II. 25. each. De Boffe, London.

T

HIS little performance feems to belong to that clafs of ferious romances in which, though truth may be the founda

tion, the embellishments and epifodes appear to be fupplied by fiction. The hero of the piece, like other heroes of romance, gives an account of his family, education, and firft love.

Having been bred to the naval fervice of his country, he was at Toulon when that city opened her port to the British fleet, and put herfelf under its protection. His defcription of the evacuation of that place by the allies is as impreffive and affecting, as his picture of the barbaritics committed by the victorious French on entering Toulon is fhocking. He escaped the general carnage by mixing with and having been taken for one of the galley flaves, the only body of men who experienced mercy from the conquerors. He fays that 200 of the inhabitants, who were the warmest partifans of the Convention, went out to congratulate their friends on the expulfion of the English, and the return of Toulon to the dominion of France: but Toulon had been declared infamous; and therefore its inhabitants, whether friends or foes, muft not expect any quarter. Accordingly, thefe 200 men were put to death, and the foldiers, having cut off their ears, fixed them in their hats over their cockades, and thus made their entrance into the town. During three days, they glutted themfelves with the blood of the Toulonefe, and fraternized only with the galley flaves.

Having mixed with the flaves, the Count pretended that he was a Swifs, who had been sentenced to the gallies for fmuggling; he was immediately liberated, and obtained a passport and fome money to return to his own country. He departed with that view: but an obftacle occurred near the frontier, which made him change his mind, and bend his courfe towards the interior part of France. He arrived at Lyons, where he remained during the fiege. This event he defcribes in the style of a mafter; and he fhews that the Convention at Paris might well have trembled for itself, for there were affembled, at one dinner given at Lyons, deputies from 52 out of the 83 departments of France, making a majority of 21, confederated for the purpose of relifting the authority of the new rulers of the Convention. He tells us that there were alfo deputies from 14 cities and towns, and from 400 furrounding villages.

On the point of efcaping from Lyons after it was taken by the troops of the Convention, the Count was stopped by a whimsical accident; he was carried, disguised as a female, before a police magiftrate; and, juft as he was going to be difmiffed, was difcovered to be a man, and a royalift; as fuch he was condemned to death: but by fome unknown influence he was fuffered to efcape from prifon. He travelled through Lower Languedoc, Gevaudan, and the Cevennes, as a drover in the fervice of a dealer in cattle. He afterward became acquainted

quainted with a fociety of determined royalifts under the mask of the most decided republicans. In the accounts which he gives of their plans, their views, and their intentions, he takes occafion to exprefs his own opinions of the internal state of France, and would have his readers believe that, in the midst of those who bellow loudest for a republic, the moft zealous champions for monarchy are to be found.-No doubt of this! Is not every public caufe, good or bad, liable to dangers attending the treachery of pretended friends, whofe employment is to deceive and betray?

In the fecond part of this work, we have the fequel of the Count's adventures. He tells us that he at length reached the army of royalifts commanded by Charette, with whom he had previously lived in the ftricteft friendship, and under whofe banners he engaged to fight. Here he takes an opportunity of giving a hiftory of the war in la Vendée, both before and after his arrival. The country known, fince the revolution, by the name of la Vendée, lies on the fouth of the Loire, in the province which was formerly called Poitou, and which was united to the crown of England by the marriage of our Henry II. with Eleanor of Acquitaine. It is an uneven country, full of natural faftneffes, covered with thick forefts, and interfperfed with bogs or fwamps. It is remarkable that its appearance has undergone little or no change fince the days of Julius Cæfar; who, in his Commentaries, acknowleges that it was a diftrict which, on account of the obftacles opposed to him by nature and the obftinate refiftance of the inhabitants, he never could completely fubdue. This may be confidered as an apology for the republican generals lately fent against it, and for the leaders of the Convention, who propofed an amnesty as means much more effectual than arms, to reclaim the people of that country. The name of la Vendée, which it received from the Conftituent Affembly, when it was made one of the 83 departments of France, was taken from a muddy little river till then scarcely known beyond its own marfhy banks. The first who raised the ftandard of royalty in that quarter was Charette, a young gentleman only 28 years of age, who, on the 10th of March 1792, at Machecould in the neighbourhood of Nantz, his native place, proclaimed Louis XVII. He was originally brought up to the fea, and, at the time of the revolution, was a lieutenant in the royal navy. His example was foon followed by Stofflet, who had been a private in the Swifs guards; and about the fame time Catineau, the facriftan of the church of Beaupreau, appeared at the head of a third body of royalifts, and declared for the fame caufe. The laft two foon fubmitted to be commanded by men of higher rank, fuch as Alonf. D'Elbée, an experienced general, whom all acknowleged

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