194 BRITISH EVERGRERNS. 



autumn^ as also for the shelter it affords during the winter; and where 

 effect is required, the variegated varieties should he intermixed with the 

 common. The Holly makes a most beautiful and durable hedge as a fence. 

 Well might the celebrated Evelyn exclaim, "Is there under heaven a more 

 glorious and refreshing object of the kind than an impregnable hedge of about 

 four hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five in diameter, which I can 

 show in my now ruined gardens at Say's Court?" (thanks to the Czar of 

 Muscovy.) The Czar, Peter the Great, is said to have resided at Mr. Evelyn's 

 house, in order to be near the dock-yard, at Deptford, during his stay in 

 England, and it is said took great delight in the very elegant amusement of 

 being wheeled in a barrow through the thick holly hedges which were the 

 pride of the garden. ^^At any time of the year," continues Evelyn, "glittering 

 with its armed and varnished leaves, the taller standards at orderly distances, 

 blushing with their natural coral! It mocks the rude assaults of the weather, 

 beasts, or hedge-breaker." 



"A hedge of Holly, thieves that would invade, 

 Repulses like a growing palisade; 

 "Whose numerous leaves such orient green invest, 

 As in deep winter do the spring arrest." 



Cowley. 



Holly hedges are by far the best and most durable of all living fences, 

 and afford the greatest degree of shelter, and no plant endures the shears 

 or knife better: it delights in a rich sandy soil. It is of slow growth the 

 first year or two after planting, but, when once established, it makes rapid 

 progress. Baudrillart speaks of Holly hedges in France upwards of two cen- 

 turies old. Ray mentions those of Lord Dacre, at his park in Sussex, and 

 Sir Matthew Decker's, at Richmond. By far the most magnificent Holly 

 hedges which are now in existence in Britain are those of the Earl of Had- 

 dington, at Tyninghara, in Scotland; also those at Collington House, and those 

 at Moredun, near Edinburgh and Dalkeith. Those at Tyningham are said to 

 have been planted about the latter end of the seventeenth century, and are 

 twenty-five feet high, and about thirteen feet in width. Those at Collington 

 are from twenty-five to thirty feet high; and those of Moredun about 

 twenty-three feet. The Holly is readily increased from seeds, by cuttings, 

 budding, and grafting. For the manner by which these operations are per- 

 formed, we beg to refer our readers to the various horticultural works treating 

 on these subjects, as not exactly coming within the limits of the pages of 

 "The NaturaUst." 



5, Middle-Street, Taunton, Somerset, June, 1853. 



