8o Villas. 



ornamental plants, I see very many of the hand- 

 somest, whose full beauties Irish climates are particu- 

 larly fit to develop for what other in Europe better 

 suits the loveliest evergreens ? 



At Villa Caiiotta, on Lake Como, a specimen of 

 the fine Holly called Ilex latifolia (whose leaves are 

 from eight to a dozen inches long), about eight feet 

 high and in full berry, particularly attracted my at- 

 tention, as the first I had seen in fruit, and by far the 

 healthiest in general appearance. Soon after I saw 

 a somewhat similar shrub in the Orto Botanico at 

 Naples. About two years later, in autumn, 1874, 

 amongst luxuriant shrubs, at Lakelands, near Cork, 

 was one of these shrubs, or small trees, about fifteen 

 feet high, with clean and well-shaped branches, and 

 abundance of ripening berry ; and in the following 

 year the same Holly fruited well at Phineas Biall's, 

 Esq., Old Conna, not far from Dublin ; and- 1 mea- 

 sured another fine plant there, about fifteen or more 

 feet high. 



Though much valuable information be attainable 

 by even an occasional Continental visit, we must now 

 return home to avail ourselves in practice of what we 

 have learned abroad. And here varieties of situa- 

 tion, of climates, and of soils, of villas and demesnes, 

 and of taste and circumstances of their owners, afford 

 opportunities for experiment, and for improving par- 

 ticular families and groups of plants, in ways and to 

 an extent not ordinarily within the province of pub- 

 lic Botanic Gardens. 



