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" There are two sorts of this ever-verdant plant. The one is denominated Eng- 

 lish, the other Irish ivy. Both are exceedingly graceful in their foliage ; but the first 

 is by far the better bearer of fruit. They will grow on any soil, save that of swamp. 

 Whilst the plant is on the ground, you have only to cover its long runners with a lit- 

 tle earth at intervals of four or five inches, and you will soon have an abundant suj>- 

 ply of ivy for ornament ; and for use, as far as the birds are concerned. This is a 

 surer way of obtaining plants, than by cutting them at once from the climbing ivy. 



" Ivy can only attain its greatest perfection through the intervention of foreign bo- 

 dies. It travels onward in a lowly state upon the ground, until it reaches some inclin- 

 ed or perpendicular object, up which it ascends. In due time it then puts out lateral 

 branches, and obtains a bole, as though it were a forest tree itself. Ivy derives no 

 nutriment from the timber tree to which it adheres. It merely makes use of a tree or 

 wall, as we ourselves do of a walking-stick, when old age or infirmities tell us that we 

 cannot do without it. Should an ancient wall and ivy come in contact, they are of 

 great assistance to each other. Dyer observed this on Grongar hill : — 

 ' Whose aged walls the ivy creeps. 



And with her arms from falling keeps : 



So, both a safety from the wind 



In mutual dependence find.' 

 There can be no doubt as to the real source from whence ivy draws life and vigour : 

 from the ground alone its maintenance proceeds. To be convinced of this, we have 

 only to inspect it narrowly on a living tree, and then pay the same attention to it up- 

 on a dead one, or upon any stump deprived of vitality. Be our eye as keen as that of 

 the lynx, we shall not be able to perceive that the one plant is more healthy, more vi- 

 gorous, or more verdant than the other ; and if we cut through the stock of the ivy in 

 either situation, we shall see that its upper parts will wither and die, down to the place 

 through which the knife has passed. 



" Some few years ago, a tall sycamore tree stood on this island, in a row with four 

 others. A remnant of its once fine bole still occupies the place which the tree adorn- 

 ed in the days of its prosperity. An unexpected appearance of fungus showed that all 

 was not right within ; and, ere long, a gale of wind cut the tree nearly in two, sending 

 its head and all its branches (saving one), with a colony of young jackdaws, down into 

 the lake below. The remaining portion of the tree, spared by the gale, put out new 

 shoots from every part of its circumference. But scarcely had these vegetated for four 

 succeeding summers, when another immense fungus made its appearance about two 

 yards from the truncated top, and all vegetation ceased that year, down to the part 

 where the fungus had come out. Below this, the trunk was still alive; but another 

 fungus, of equal dimensions with the last, showed itself about five feet from the ground, 

 and deprived the bole of all vegetation upwards. 



" At length this sickly remnant of the sycamore tree received its final doom ; for, 

 last summer, a vast profusion of fungus pushed up its circular cakes even from below 

 the surface of the ground ; and on their coming to maturity all the living powers with- 

 in this ill-treated tree expired. The bole now stands a dead and unproductive stump. 

 Any day, a north-west wind, sweeping across the water, may lay it low for ever. Did 

 the ivy, which I had planted at the base many years ago, depend upon this bole for 

 succour, it would now be dead and withered ; but, on the contrary, that remaining 

 part of it, free from mutilation when the different portions of the tree fell down, is now 

 in verdure, and in primest vigour ; but as it has no longer an opportunity fif creeping 



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