MISTLETOE 209 



is by no means adequate to the Christmas demand for it, 

 for while numerous goods trains laden with absolutely 

 nothing else arrive from Herefordshire and elsewhere to 

 the all-demanding Metropolis, these supplies are largely 

 supplemented by steamboat cargoes from abroad. We have 

 seen the French boats arrive with their decks and holds 

 laden with crates of it, and the specially fine pieces that 

 it seemed a pity to pack or compress, tied all round the 

 rigging and waving in the breeze. A friend of ours, resident 

 some few years ago in Deans' Yard, had a noble piece of 

 mistletoe growing on an old apple-tree in her garden, 

 almost under the shadow of Westminster Abbey, and it 

 is possibly there still. If any of our readers would like 

 to grow their own mistletoe, all that is necessary is to 

 take a ripe berry between one's fingers, crush it so as 

 liberate the seed, and then press it into a crack of the 

 bark of the tree that is to play the part of host. This 

 crack must be on the under side of the bough, or the 

 rain may wash the seed away or some bird devour it. 

 Its growth begins with the first Spring, and in about 

 four years it will be a fine bushy mass, but we must 

 bear in mind that the more successful we are in our 

 growth of mistletoe the more effectually we are damaging 

 the tree upon which we place it, as its roots, branching 

 freely, penetrate into the very heart of the wood.^ The 

 mistletoe in destroying the tree brings about its own death. 

 If we find a tree that has been thus killed, we see on the 

 decay of the parasite that the wood of the host has been 



' The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean, 

 O'ercome with moss and baleful Misseltoe. 



Shakespeare. 



