HOLLY. 



HONEY. 



HOLLY (Hex aquifolium). A handsome 

 evergreen tree, of slow growth, with a smooth, 

 gray bark, which, abounding in mucilage, 

 makes bird-lime by maceration in water. The 

 wood is hard, close-grained, and covered with 

 the above smooth gray bark. The leaves are 

 alternate, stalked, rigid, shining, waxy, with 

 spinotis divaricated lobes ; the upper ones on 

 old trees entire, with only a terminal prickle. 

 The flowers are copious, white, tinged exter- 

 nally with purple, the earlier ones least perfect. 

 The berries are scarlet, casually yellow. The 

 holly ^rows in hedges and bushy places upon 

 dry hills. Numerous variegated varieties are 

 kept in gardens, and one whose leaves are 

 prickly on the disk. Darwin suggested the 

 idea, that the points on the lower leaves of the 

 holly was a provision of nature to prevent 

 them from being eaten by cattle ; hence, when 

 the tree grows beyond the reach of the cattle, 

 the leaves lose the pines, that species of ar- 

 mature being no longer necessary. The tree 

 bears clipping well ; but it is not so fashionable 

 for cut hedges as formerly. The branches, 

 laden with berries, are stuck about rustic 

 kitchens and churches at Christmas, and re- 

 main till Candlemas Day. In Norfolk and 

 some other English counties the misseltoe ac- 

 companies them, and sometimes branches of 

 the spindletree or prickwood. 



The common holly of the United States is 

 the Ilex opaca of naturalists, a handsome ever- 

 green which, though in some of the Middle 

 Slates a mere shrub, in others assumes the 

 dignity of a tree. In Kent county, Delaware, 

 the holly frequently attains a height of 30 to 40 

 feet. Seven or eight additional species are 

 found in the United States, chiefly in the south. 



HOLM (Sax. and Danish). An island or 

 fenny place surrounded by water. 



HOLM OAK, or HOLLY OAK. See OAK. 



HOLT (Sax. a iroorf ; Germ. holz\ The 

 termination of many names of places in Eng- 

 land, derive! from their ancient situation in a 

 wood. 



HOLY-GRASS, NORTHERN (HicrochU* bo- 

 reii/is). The sweet-scented soft-grass, Holcus 

 urinratns (repent) of some botanists. The pow- 

 erful creeping roots of this grass, its tender 

 nature, and tne great deficiency of foliage in 

 the spring are demerits which discourage the 

 v?a of recommending it further to the notice 



90 



of the agriculturist. It comes into flower 

 about the end of April, and perfects hardly 

 any seed; but few grasses propagate more 

 quickly by the roots. This grass is said to be 

 used at high festivals, for strewing the churches 

 in Prussia, as Jlcorus calamus has time out of 

 mind been employed in the cathedral an 

 streets of Norwich on the mayor's day. 



HOMESTEAD, or FARM STEADING. A 

 collection of farm buildings and offices ar- 

 ranged in a convenient form. 



HONEY (German, honig). A well-known 

 vegetable substance collected by bees. "Its 

 flavour," says Dr. A. T. Thomson, " varies 

 according to the nature of the flowers from 

 which it is collected. Thus, the honeys of 

 Minorca, Narbonne, and England are known 

 by their flavours. It is separated from the 

 comb by dripping, and by expression ; the first 

 method affords the purest sort, the second se- 

 parates a less pure honey, and a still inferior 

 kind is obtained by heating the comb before it 

 is pressed. When obtained from young hives 

 which have not swarmed, it is denominated 

 virgin honey. It is sometimes adulterated with 

 flour and starch, which may be detected by 

 mixing it with tepid water ; the honey dissolves, 

 while the flour or starch remains nearly un- 

 altered." Honey is easily soluble in water, 

 and, like sugar, readily undergoes the vinous 

 fermentation; in this way, in fact, mead is 

 made, an intoxicating beverage, once much 

 more extensively prepared than now. 



Honey constitutes a very important product 

 of some countries, among which we may name 

 Poland, where the management of bees is an 

 extensive branch of forest culture. Poland 

 honey is commercially divided into three 

 classes ; the finest, called lipiec, is gathered by 

 the bees from the lime tree alone, and is con- 

 sidered on the Continent most valuable, not 

 only for the superiority of its flavour, but also 

 for the estimation in which it is held as an ar- 

 canum in pulmonary complaints, containing 

 very little wax, and being, consequently, less 

 heating in its nature ; it is as white as milk, 

 and is only to be met with in the lime forests 

 in the neighbourhood of the town of Kowno, 

 in Lithuania. It is the June and July work alone 

 that constitutes this delightful product, and 

 which is carefully taken from the hives, in 

 which is left for the store of the bees the honey 

 collected by them before and after the flowering 

 of the linden, a tree quite different from all the 

 rest of the genus Tilia, and called Kamienna 

 lipsa, or Stone Lime. 



The leszny, the next class of honey, which is 

 inferior in a great degree to the lipiec, being 

 only for the common mead, is that of the pine 

 forests. 



The third class of honey is the stepowey praa- 

 znyniird, or the honey from meadows or places 

 where there is an abundance of perennial 

 plants, and hardly any wood. The province 

 of Ukraine produces the very best, and also 

 the very best wax. In that province the pea- 

 sants pay particular attention to this branch 

 of economy, as it is the only resource they 

 have to enable them to defray the taxes levied 

 by Russia; and they consider the produce of 

 I bees equal to ready money. 



