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The best time for sowing the seed is January or February. The young plant 

 is at first very slow in its growth, and will spend one, and sometimes two years, in 

 the formation of roots only, before sending out any regular stems. 



Mistletoe can also be artificially propagated by grafting or budding, and with 

 still greater certainty by inarching, but it is very unnecessary in this county to 

 adopt either of these plans. 



The Continental experimentalists do not seem to find much difficulty in 

 making Mistletoe seeds grow. M. Du Hamel made a long series of experiments 

 with regard to its mode of propagation, and succeeded on all trees but the fig, 

 the oak, the hazel, and the juniper. He could always make the seed germinate, 

 even on earthen pots, stones, dead pieces of wood, or even upon the ground, but 

 though the radicles would shoot out freely at first they quickly died, shewing 

 that it was a true parasite and would only grow upon trees. 



M. Dutrochet proved by a series of delicate experiments that they do not 

 obey the usual law of plants in germinating, by at once directing their radicles 

 towards the centre of the earth, but always direct them towards the centre of the 

 object against which they are grown. He caused Mistletoe seeds hanging from 

 threads to germinate on all sides of round balls, and in cases even when the ball 

 was of metal, the radicles were directed towards the centre of the ball, and not 

 towards the earth — that is, the seeds beneath the ball directed their radicles 

 upwards, those on the top sent them downwards, and those at the sides hori- 

 zontally. 



Paley, in his Natural Theology, brings forward the Mistletoe as a singular 

 instance of what he terms " compensation " in his argument to prove the design 

 and contrivance of nature, that inasmuch as its seeds could not grow in the earth 

 like those of other plants, nature has provided them with an adhesive property, 

 which no other seeds have, to enable them to stick to the tree on which they do 

 grow. 



The following observations on the mode of growth of the young plant are 

 taken from a paper by Dr. John Harley, on the " Parasitism of the Mistletoe," 

 which was read before the Linnsan Society, in March, 1863. This paper con- 

 tains a very careful and elaborate investigation into the anatomical relation of 

 the Mistletoe to the plants on which it grows, and draws some very interesting 

 conclusions as to their physiological relations to each other. 



"The Mistletoe attaches itself to the nourishing piants, by roots, some of 

 which are horizontal and confined to the bark, while the others are contained 

 within the wood. Henslow, Griffith, Unger, Schacht, and Pitra, all agree in the 

 following particulars : — The young plant first sends into the bark of the nourishing 

 plant a single root, sucker, or senker, which, pressing inwards, comes into per- 

 pendicular relation to the wood of the nourishing plant, in the cambial layer of 

 which the point rests, and there ceases to grow. In its passage towards the wood. 

 it gives off several horizontal or side roots, which run along the branch in the bark, 

 or upon the surface of the wood. These side roots give origin to perpendicular 



