A WINTER GARDEN OF TREES 47 



thrill of admiration, especially this woodland sort, 

 for, mark it well, Nature never encourages the 

 coarse-lived Ivy of common cultivation within her 

 domains. How perfect in its grace is this fine- 

 leaved Ivy, how utterly content with its surroundings, 

 how resolutely cheerful, be the circumstances of 

 weather or situation what they may ! Clinging lowly 

 to the ground or mounting to the topmost branch 

 of some tall Pine, it is equally at home, and why 

 should we not agree with that good naturalist, Charles 

 Waterton, in his assertion that forest tree was never 

 injured by its clasping stems ? An English plant 

 for our English climate, it may be used to make 

 beautiful an unsightly building, to clothe a decay- 

 ing tree stump, as bush or border or mantle, in 

 a hundred different ways, yet it is never out of 

 character, and never touches a jarring note. 



Then those tall Hollies, see how dauntlessly they 

 stand up above the under-growth of Hazel. How 

 living and warm, in their ruddy glow, are the cluster- 

 ing berries in the glint of the fearless leaves. For 

 expedience sake, their lower branches have been 

 trimmed away, and greatly we gain by it, for other- 

 wise that lovely contrast of their ashen-grey stems 

 would be hidden from our eyes ; but over yonder 

 a fine old Holly tree stands alone, which axe and 

 knife have left untouched, and how graceful is the 

 curven sweep of its feathering boughs. No foreign 

 evergreen can excel it for symmetry of form or 

 winter garniture of leaf and fruit. Life is astir, too, 

 in the brown twigs of the Hazel bushes. The infant 



