THE HOLM OAK. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



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HE Holm Oak stands in an old-fashioned garden, a garden 

 that is which has outgrown Fashion, where no one 

 asks if the flowers are the fancy of the moment, since 

 all flowers that are beautiful and fragrant have a place 

 there, and half its charms have sprung from the fancies of folk 

 forgotten long ago. 



No one can say how long the Holm Oak has been there. It 

 was perhaps planted when arbours and hillocks and geometrical flower- 

 beds had the homage of all garden-lovers. As a young tree it stood 

 by a trim bowling-green, and drew less admiration, one may be 

 sure, than the clipped yews which made a background for the 

 sundial, or the leaden figures of shepherd or shepherdess, transfixed 

 in a never-ending dance, beside the stately terraced walks. 



When the yews and the sundial made way for streams and 

 rockeries, and the avenues for twisted paths which lead to unsuspected 

 grottos and mock ruins, for a few summers and winters the dark 

 branches of the Holm Oak were reflected in the water of an 

 artificial lake. Then simpler tastes prevailed ; once more, and tor 

 the last time, Fashion busied itself about the garden. It would be a 

 ruthless hand now that disturbed the perfect setting of the dark Ilex. 

 Measured by some of its tribe it is a young tree yet. The traditions 

 of Rome ascribe to the sacred tree at Tibur no less than 1200 years, 

 and to the tree in the Vatican garden 800. But old or young the 

 tree is full of beauty, with its branchlets trailing to the ground from 

 low horizontal boughs, and its grey branches bearing masses of little 

 grev-green leaves. Only Holly leaves are at once so dark and so 



