EUROPEAN HOLLY. 163 



their day, were those of Lord Dacre, at his park in Sussex, and of Sir Matthew 

 Decker, at Richmond. "I have seen hedges," observes Hvelyn, "or, if you 

 will, stout walls of holly, twenty feet in height, kept upright : and the gilded 

 sort budded low, and in two or three places one above another, shorn and fash- 

 ioned into columns and pilasters, architecturally shaped, and at due distance; 

 than which nothing can possibly be more pleasant, the berry adorning the interco- 

 lumniations with scarlet festoons, and encarpa." In Scotland, the most celebrated 

 holly hedges were those of the Earl of Haddington, at Tyningham, and those at 

 CoUington House, and at Moredun, near Edinburgh. Those at Tyningham 

 were chiefly planted in 1712, and are two thousand nine hundred and filty-two 

 yards in length, from ten to twenty-five feet in height, and from nine to thirteen 

 feet wide at the base. Most of the hedges are regularly clipped in April, and 

 are carefully protected, by ditches on each side, from the bite of cattle, and 

 more particularly of sheep, which are very fond of the bark, shoots, and young 

 leaves of this tree. 



Pliny tells us that there was a holly-tree, in his time, growing near the Vati- 

 can, in Rome, on which was fixed a plate of brass, with an inscription engraven 

 in Tuscan letters ; and that this was older than Rome itself, which must have 

 been more than eight hundred years. The same author notices a holly-tree, in 

 Tusculum, the trimk of which measured thirty-five feet in circumference, and 

 which sent out ten branches, of such magnitude, that each might pass for a tree 

 itself. He says, that this single tree alone, resembled a small wood. 



Cole informs us, in his " Paradise of Plants," that he knew a tree of this kind 

 which grew in an orchard, and " the owner," he says, "cut it down, and caused 

 it to be sawn into boards, and made himself thereof a coffin ; and, if I mistake 

 not, left enough to make his wife one also. Both the parties were corpulent; 

 and, therefore, you may imagine the tree could not be small." Evelyn men- 

 tions some large holly-trees near his own place, at Wooton, in Surry, in the 

 neighbourhood of which was once a fort called " Holmsdale Castle," from, as he 

 supposes, the number of holms or hollies, Avhicli once grew there. The names 

 of "Holmsdale," " Holmwood," and "Holme Castle," occur in- various parts of 

 Scotland, and are generally supposed to have been applied in consequence of the 

 abundance of hollies at these places at the times the names were given. Hayes 

 mentions a variegated silver holly at Ballygannon, in Ireland, twenty-five feet 

 high, with a trunk five feet in circumference ; and another, on Innisfallen Island, 

 in the lake of Killarney, with a trunk fifteen feet in circumference, and of about 

 the same height before it began to branch out. 



The largest holly in England, is at Claremont, in Surry. It grows in a sandy 

 loam or gravel, and in 1835, measured eighty feet in height, with a trunk two 

 feet, two inches in diameter, and an ambitus, or spread of branches, of twenty- 

 five feet. 



At Paris, in the Jardin des Plantes, there is a tree of this species, which 

 attained the height of thirty feet in fifty years after planting. And Baudrillart 

 speaks of holly hedges, in France, that are upwards of two hundred years old. 



In Prussia, the holly grows wild in a forest twenty miles from Berlin, never- 

 iheless, in the botanic garden of that city, it requires protection during winter. 



In Italy, at Monza, there is a tree of this species, which attained the height of 

 twenty feet in thirty years after planting. 



The European holly was probably among the first trees introduced into Xorth 

 America by the early settlers, but owing to the severity of our climate in winter, 

 it appears not to have thrived north of the Potomac. There are several fine 

 specimens of this tree in Virginia, which have long been standing there, and 

 probably were planted soon after the settlement of Jamestown, in 1607. 



Poetical and Legendary Allusion t In the language of poets, this tree is 



