158 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



The Common Holly (Ilex aquifolium) is very 

 abundantly diffused, being found in . warm climates, 

 and in cold, in most countries of Europe, and in 

 many of Asia and America. Hollies are abundant 

 in some of the uncultivated parts of the southern 

 counties of England ; and they are also to be met with 

 in the Highlands of Scotland, in places where one 

 could hardly suppose they had been planted. 



Were it not that the holly grows very slowly when 

 young, and cannot be safely transplanted when it has 

 attained a considerable size, it would make better 

 hedge-rows than the hawthorn. When allowed time r 

 and not destroyed by shortening the top-shoot, the 

 holly grows up to a large tree. Some at the Holly- 

 walk, near Frensham. in Surrey, are mentioned by 

 Bradley, as having grown to the height of sixty feet ; 

 and old hollies of thirty and forty feet, with clean 

 trunks of considerable diameter, are to be met with 

 in many parts of the country. 



A holly hedge is a pleasing object, though it is too 

 often clipped into formal shapes. Evelyn had a 

 magnificent hedge of this sort, at his gardens at 

 Say's Court, which he planted at the suggestion of 

 Peter the Great, who resided in his house when he 

 worked in the dock-yards at Deptford. He thus 

 rapturously speaks of this fine fence: "Is there 

 under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object 

 of the kind than an impregnable hedge, of about four 

 hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five in 

 diameter, which I can shew in my new raised gar- 

 dens at Say's Court (thanks to the Czar of Muscovy) 

 at any time of the year, glittering with its armed and 

 varnished leaves, the taller standards, at orderly dis- 

 tances, blushing with their natural coral." 



The timber of the holly is very white and compact, 

 which adapts it well for many purposes in the arts; 

 though, as it is very retentive of its sap, and warps in 



