NOTES ON THE VARIETIES OF ENGLISH HOLLY. 111 
EE EL орви нь i SiN oC Uae Dal a ai 
nature; in sunshine its brilliant leaves reflect the feeble solar rays, and 
in gloom they make a charming contrast with the dead-leaf colour of 
the Beech, which is often found in company with it.” I heartily adopt 
the language of Duhamel, and add that we have no evergreen shrub at 
all comparable with the Holly for usefulness, variety, and beauty. 
The Holly forms an admirable single tree, or group of trees, alike 
appropriate on lawns, or in woods and hedgerows. It is also the densest 
and warmest of hedge-plants, though of slow growth in comparison with 
the Hawthorn, It is again invaluable as an undergrowth in plantations 
and preserves. 
There is a fine group of the original English Holly growing nearly 
opposite the entrance to Panshanger, near Hertford, the seat of the Earl 
Cowper, and numberless fine specimens may be seen in the hedges of 
that district. I have observed two distinct forms of the wild Holly 
growing in the Hertfordshire lanes, the one prickly, the other smooth, 
the latter growing more vigorously and becoming the larger tree. Рег- 
it may be the latter that Southey alludes to, in his elegant poem, 
“The Holly Tree," when he says :— rj 
Below a circling fence its leaves are seen 
Wrinkled and keen ; 
No grazing cattle through their prickly round 
Can reach to wound ; ; 
But as they grow wł thing is t , 
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear. 
It may seem ungracious to throw а doubt on so charming a fantasy, 
and my opportunities of observation have not been sufficiently extended 
to allow me to speak decidedly; but, as far as I have observed, the evi- 
dence is not eonclusively in favour of Southey's view. me uh 
Many exquisite pictures of Holly and Hawthorn carelessly intertwined 
exist in Epping Forest, and they are scarcely less lovely when the 
Hawthorn is in blossom than when the Holly is in berry. The Holly 
hedges at Tynninghame, in Scotland, planted about 1705 by Thomas, 
Sixth Earl of Haddington, have attained a world-wide celebrity. They 
are 2952 yards in length, from 16 to 25 feet in height, and from 14 to 
17 feet broad at the base. Mr. Lees, the intelligent gardener there, 
informs me that they are clipped annually in April. The soil is a fine 
deep yellow loam resting on gravel. А clipped Holly hedge, near one 
of my nurseries here, was once a source of attraction to every by. 
Though now neglected, it originally formed a dense, impenetrable fence, 
inaccessible to birds, and impregnable to those boys to whom palings, 
walls, and ordinary fences offer but slight difficulties, tempting even for 
the pleasure of overcoming them. mee 
The common green Holly is propagated by seeds gathered at Mit 
mas, stored in heaps, and sown in light sandy soil the autumn е 
varieties do not reproduce themselves true from seed, and ei 4 
Sequently incteased by cuttings, layers, budding, and grafting. " cn 
large sowing of the berries of the variegated Holly once -— 
