A change in our cHmate, however, is taking place very fenfibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moder- ate within the memory even of the mid- [ ^57 ] die-aged. Snows are lefs frequent and lefs deep. They do not often lie, below the mountains, more than one, two, or three days, and very rarely a week. They are remembered to have been formerly fre- quent, deep and of long continuance. The elderly inform me, the earth ijfed to be covered with fnow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then feldom failed to freeze over in the courfe of the winter, fcarcely ever do fo now.
This change has produced an unfortunate fluftuation between heat and cold, in the fpring of the year, which is very fatal to fruits. From the year 1741 to 1769, an interval of twenty-eight years^ there was no inftance of fruit killed by the froft in the neighbourhood of Monticello. An in- tenfe cold, produced by conftant fnows, kept the buds locked up till the fun could obtain, in the fpring of the year, fo fixed an afcendency as to diffolve thofe fnows, and proted the buds, during their developement, from every