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their beaks on the neighbouiing trees the seeds are sown — a view, 

 it is sufficient to say, which supposes that the birds don't know 

 how to eat the berries they like so much. 



There is no longer any question that the natural mode in 

 which the Mistletoe is propagated from one tree to another is 

 that so graphically represented by the ancient observers ; and it 

 is a fact that many modem experimentalists succeed so much 

 better in growing the seeds that the birds have thus dropped, that 

 they seek for them, in preference to using seed fresh from the 

 plant itself. It is equally beyond all doubt, however, that fresh 

 seeds will grow without undergoing any such process. 



The artificial propagation of the Mistletoe from the natural 

 seeds, on trees adapted to receive the parasite, is by no means dif- 

 ficult in this county with ordinary care. Fasten the seeds of the 

 berries by the glutinous matter surrounding them to the boughs 

 of a crab or an apple tree, or a black poplar, and if they escape 

 destruction from small birds. Sparrows, Biillfijiches, or especiallj'^ 

 Tom-tits, some of them will be sure to germinate and take root. 

 Many persons however, even here, have found such great diffi- 

 culty in growing the seeds that the following precise rules for 

 doing so are added. Raise a considerable piece of the bark by 

 a sloping incision, nearly an inch long, on the under side of the 

 branch to be experimented upon : the cut should only be made 

 through the bark itself, and not into the wood of the branch ; 

 or, more simply still, a broad notch may be cut in the bark, 

 then having chosen some fine well ripened berries, open the skin 

 of one of them, remove the seed with great care and place it in 

 the base of the notch thus made, with the embryo directed to- 

 wards the trunk of the tree, and restore the raised bark over it. 

 In this way it is best secured from the sun and winds that might 

 dry it up ; from the rains that might wash it off; and from the 

 birds also. The branch experimented upon should not be less 

 than five feet froon the ground. 



The seeds of the Mistletoe require to be handled with 

 great delicacy, a light crush will destroy their vitality by injur- 

 ing the embryo, and the pulp surrounding them is so very 



