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JOUENAL OF HOBTICULTDRE AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



I December 26, 1867. 



troubles. So pleasant to cut open a paper and get rid of all 

 these at once. To many ladies and gentlemen this is not a 

 business, but a recreation paper. The citizen in his villa reads 

 it when he has left London and bueiness behind him, and I 

 hope, nay, know, that we raise or cherish a taste for pure, 

 simple, healthy, country pleasures in many hearts. 



A young London lady made me sad once by her answer to 

 my question, as to which part of the Park she liked best, 

 thinking she would answer, The flower-beds ; but she said, 

 " Oh ! of course, the Drive." Idle young ladies often grieve 

 me, and remind me of the one I read of in " Nuga; Spring- 

 fieldenses." 



*' An active young lady of Bnrstead, 

 For work of great usefulness tbiratod : 

 So she played all the day 

 Bagatelle and croquet, 

 And worked all the evening in worsted." 



Woman's business is something more than this. There are 

 high duties and pure tastes, and to these latter I believe we 

 supply food. Just as gladness and fun are caught from chil- 

 dren (the only "merry" part of England left), so from the 

 pages of a periodical devoted to pure recreations, pure tastes 

 are in turn imbibed or strengthened, and I hope, too, we not 

 seldom cast a sunbeam over hard business-life. 



As to flowers there is in them a marvellously soothing power. 

 A poor usher shut up in a noisy school-room, and, worse than 

 that, boy-plagued out of school hours as well, when, as oc- 

 casionally a better boy brought him a nosegay from his own 

 garden in the country home, he, the usher, was wont to put it 

 on his desk — that hard desk, type of a hard life — and glance at 

 the flowers, and eyeing them was comforted and cheered, and 

 forgot the horse-and-mill monotonous work of the school. 



And the poor servant girl in London saves the half-withered 

 flowers of the parlour (how old-fashioned I am ! why, they are 

 all drawing-rooms now), and decorates her kitchen-table with 

 them, and as she sets at work of an evening looks at them 

 fondly, for they remind her of the old garden in the country. 



" They are flowers of enchantment. What ails her ? She sees 

 A high hill ascendinj;, a vision of trees. 

 And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's, 

 The only one dwelling on earth that she loves." 



We clergymen often witness the soothing power of flowers. 

 I remember years ago, when a curate, the youngest child in 

 a farm-house, one of a very large family, lying very ill of 

 fever for a long period of time. Frequently I saw her, and the 

 ride became so familiar that I knew every tree, almost every 

 bird. It was the valley by a river, and I loved to watch the 

 reed-buntings, with their black velvety heads, springing from 

 Bulrush to Bulrush, and was amused infinitely by a brood of 

 long-tilled tits, which ran Indian file up a bough of a tree 

 near. On coming to the farm, there was always fear as to 

 whether or not I should find the blinds down, and the house in 

 mourning. Sometimes, for the illness varied, I had a shake of 

 the head, at other times a cheery smile. The sick child was 

 the pet lamb of that large flock, and was tended so carefully 

 by her eldest sister — woman- grown and old enough to be her 

 mother. In the long weakness after the fever, a weakness 

 almost worse to bear than pain, and she was quite deaf too, I 

 remember how her only pleasure was to have the petals of 

 flowers put on a little box-lid in front of her, and with her 

 thin, thin fingers she arranged them in devices, mingling 

 the colours as fancy prompted. And so the bright garden she 

 could not visit was brought to her in her sick room, and its 

 flowers soothed the little sufferer, and what a good and hopeful 

 sign we all thought was her noticing and loving the flowers ! 



We, of this paper, cherish a taste which soothes in sickness, 

 and we also add to the pleasure which competition always gives 

 from a schoolboy to an M.P., as we publish the list of awards 

 at various shows, whether horticultural or poultry. 



I would just ask how it is there are not more feather fanciers ? 

 Surely ladies who excel us in taste might find great amusement 

 in breeding and rearing Hamburgh and Sebright fowls, and 

 German Toy Pigeons. All these call for much taste, and are 

 the perfection of feathered beauty. Birds of weight require 

 much labour, but birds of feather only taste. 



I glance at the now almost past year. We have lost from 

 the poultry world Lady Holmesdale, a cause for regret ; yet as 

 her beautiful stock has gone to various fanciers, they will tend 

 to widen the ever-extending taste for poultry. 



Other things I would say, but it is time I close this paper, 

 for I am only an errant writer. This I would always remember, 

 for the science and the direct instruction come from other 

 pens. To these, and all readers and writers from 171, Fleet 



Street, to (Ah! where to? for I cannot tell), I wish a 



Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and to present all 

 with these few words, which I deem suitable for this Christmas. 

 — Wiltshire Bectob. 



THE MISTLETOE. 



That grave old authority. Sir John Colbach, says empha- 

 tically, " This beautiful plant must have been designed for 

 further and more noble purposes than to feed thru.ohes, and to 

 be hung up in houses to drive away eril spirits ;" and we, as 

 well as our readers, assent heartily, for the said " beautiful 

 plant " is hung up as an invitation to " good spirits," for we 

 have what follows from a clerical pen : — " On the north side 



of the church at M are a great many Holly trees. It is 



from these that our dining and bed-rooms are furnished with 

 boughs. Families take it by turns to entertain their friends. 

 They meet early; the beef and pudding are noble ; the mince- 

 pies — pecuUar; the Nuts half- play things and half-eatables; the 

 Oranges as cold and acid as they ought to be, furnishing us 

 with a superfluity which we can afford to laugh at ; the cakes 

 indestructible; the wassail bowls generous, old English, huge, 

 demanding ladles, threatening overflow as they come in, 

 solid with roasted Apples when set down. Towards bed-time 

 you hear of Elder wine, and not seldom of punch. At the 

 manor house it is pretty much the same as elsewhere. Girls, 

 although they be ladies, are kissed under the Mistletoe." 



So now for a few words on this one plant of merry Christmas, 

 which has been handed down to us through countless genera- 

 tions, not as a relic of early Christian feeling only, but as one 

 which played an important part on solemn occasions centuries 

 before the humanising influence of Christianity was felt in our 

 land. But without calling to memory the purposes for which 

 this mysterious plant was employed in the Druidical age, I 

 would draw attention to the Mistletoe of the present day, and 

 its many peculiarities as a plant, differing so widely from others 

 by which it is surrounded, and on that account it has through all 

 ages been either an object of veneration or wonder, excepting, 

 perhaps, amongst the unthinking, who see it in its greatest 

 abundance in the districts favourable to its growth, and even 

 they at times must be struck with the different character it 

 presents from anything else they have to deal with. 



The unlettered rustic is not the only one to whom the Mistle- 

 toe has appeared a puzzle. Those who have esteemed them- 

 selves authorities in cultural matters have more than once 

 been at fault in their ideas of how this plant is propagated. 

 Some of the early writers in gardening asserted that it was 

 hopeless attempting its cultivation, as the seed must pass 

 through the gizzard of a bird before it would germinate. This 

 doctrine, very prevalent at one time, has been abandoned, for 

 experiments have proved that the plant can be propagated by 

 other means. 



I believe that the Mistletoe is more plentiful in England 

 than in any other country. I think I have heard of its growing 

 in the north-west of France, but less plentifully than in some 

 of the south-western counties of England ; yet even in this 

 country it has its favourite abodes, and these are not by any 

 means those in which the rigours of winter are least felt. The 

 counties which are said to supply the largest quantities to the 

 metropolis and other large towns for the Christmas display 

 are Herefordshire, Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, and Wor- 

 cestershire, especially the first named ; while to a less extent it 

 is found near London. Still, the question arises — not easily 

 answered — Why is not Devonshire included in the Mistletoe-pro- 

 ducing district ? No doubt it does furnish some, but its reputation 

 for producing " The Mistletoe Bough " is not on a par with its 

 cider-making, and I am told that this parasite is there far from 

 plentiful ; while in Cornwall, where the winter is even still 

 milder, the Mistletoe is still more scarce, and in what little I 

 have seen of the orchards of that county I do not recollect 

 noticing any where the Mistletoe was growing, although the age 

 and appearance of many of the trees indicated they were in a 

 condition to support this singular production. 



If this parasite is scarce in Cornwall and in a great portion 

 of Devonshire, as well as in the south-coast counties, I may be 

 justified in concluding that the Mistletoe does not like the sea 

 breeze, and that salt air, as well as salt water, is detrimental 

 to it. 



I know of but one locality — the Meiklour woods — in Soot- 

 land, where the Mistletoe is found ; aud as rave is it in our 

 northern counties ;' yet the largest plant I ever recollect seeing 



