102 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



foadlmd, Mhwn %n& %mim. 



HEDGES AND T.HEIR USES. 



No. VI. — The American Holly, (llsx). 



4 , 



'Shoots up its spine, and shakes its leaves in the sun.'" — Proctor. 

 "Happy is he who, in a country life, 

 Shuns more perplexing toil and jarring strife; 

 Who lives upon the natal soil he loves, 

 And sits beneath his old ancestral groves." 



We speak* in this paper of a plant, a venerable relic of 

 the old plantation of the Elizabethan age, yet a plant long 

 neglected for no good reason that we can perceive. In 

 the days of Henry and Queen Elizabeth, there abounded 

 ■what were termed ancient parterres, or picturesque gardens. 

 In these rich old grounds this green Holly did much abound. 

 While we like the plant, we like not its ' ' topiary " treatment, 

 at that time common. It is a whimsical, barbarous con- 

 ceit, this cutting out of the green Holly the "Great Queen 

 Dragon " or any other horrid ingenuity suggested by the 

 morbid fancy of the gardeners (?). Were we to call such 

 men gardeners at this period, we should offend against all 

 sense, reason or good taste. But we can pardon even this 

 low taste, this meagre appreciation of high art, so long as 

 it has left us unimpaired in its native beauty, the grand old 

 American Holly. From the man of unappreciative mind 

 and uneducated taste we can forgive much, for in what is 

 left the true lover of nature rejoices. 



"A wood coeval with "himself he sees, 

 And loves his own cotemporary trees." 



Among the beautiful plants that may be called suitable 

 for hedges, we would name the American Holly. If we 

 could only press into our service as a hedge plant the old 

 English Holly, well adapted to withstand the cold of our 

 severe winters, what a beautiful tree would grace our gar- 

 den plots. Who does not love its rich, deep green leaves, 

 its grassy foliage, and its rich garniture of bright coral ber- 

 ries, studding like gems its massive beauty ? Only a few 

 of these beautiful evergreens grace our American gardens, 

 and these secured an existence only by the most skilful care ; 

 while in England it may be truly called the "pride and 

 beauty " of the English garden. 



Passing the many bright and delightful recollections of 

 the Holly tree, and its legends and Christmas carols, its 

 talismanic virtues, and its many bright associations, we 

 feel that if we cannot have the English Holly from the un- 

 congeniality of our climate, we need not despair.* While 

 we are compelled to part reluctantly with the European 

 Holly in our Middle States, yet it may be cultivated some- 

 what, as it has been, south of Philadelphia with tolerably 

 good success, and in time we may hope to see it fully accli- 

 mated. We would encourage lovers of this valuable plant 

 to make experiment, hoping that some fortunate individual 

 may in time succeed in growing a hedge of the Holly. 



We fall back with a good grace and much confidence to 

 the American Holly, which in several respects nearly re- 

 sembles the European. Our American Holly has leaves 

 very much like the English, waved and irregular upon its 

 surface, and in general outline, though the leaves are some- 

 what longer than the English. They are in color a trifle 

 lighter green than their European prototype, and like it pre- 

 sent the same row of sharp points or prickly terminations. 

 The berries, perhaps, do not grow quite so profusely as 

 upon the English, but in quantity sufficient for all purposes 

 of propagation. The American Holly may be said to cover 

 quite an extensive region of our middle climate, and one 

 has only to take a journey to the eastern shore of Maryland, 

 some portions of Virginia, and the lowlands of New Jersey, 

 ' to find this plant growing not only profusely but in full 

 perfection of all its natural beauty. I had the pleasure once 

 in company with Mr. A- J- Downing, of visiting in Mary- 

 land a most splendid grove of American Holly. It would 

 have done one's heart good to have looked upon some of 

 those beautiful green trees. " It is no uncommon sight," 

 remarked Mr. Downing, "to behold trees forty feet in height 

 in such localities." In the shady swamps where the soil is 

 cool and rich, it grows perfectly rampant. 



In conversation with a gentlemen of much intelligence, 

 from West Tennessee, he remarked it was his belief that 

 the experiment of transplanting these Holly plants of one 

 and two feet high, might be done with perfect success, 

 were it done at the right season and in the right manner. 

 My own observation led me to that conclusion, Here were 

 isolated plants, perfect in symmetry and in healthy condi- 

 tion, sO wondrously beautiful that I longed for a spade and 

 means of transportation for some of them. There is but 

 little question in my mind that the same degree of 

 cure that is requisite to grow a good hemlock hedge would 

 also give with cultivation an equally as good Holly hedge, 

 and oh, how much more beautiful. In such localities as 

 the one I am speaking of, the Holly tree often reaches forty 

 feet in height and from twelve to fifteen inches in diameter. 



The Holly is quite a slow growing tree, yet is neverthe- 

 less always beautiful. The American Holly can be quite 

 easily cultivated, and we are surprised that so few speci- 

 mens of it, even as trees or separate plants, to say nothing 

 of it as a hedge plant, are cultivated in our gardens and 

 upon our lawns, where they never fail to prove very attrac- 

 tive. The seeds of the American Holly can be very easily 

 procured, and can be as easily propagated as many other 

 not half as beautiful and valuable plants. To have the 



+Many attempts have been made to acclimate the English Holly in 

 the*Ncw England States, but without success. Much money has been 

 spent for this purpose in vain. True, we have, and still may see in highly 

 sheltered enclosures fine specimens of the Holly; but they are quite rare, 

 a* the plant is too tender for Mew England^ 



seeds of the Holly tree vegetate readily, you have only to 

 gather in autumn the quantity you wish to plant; then 

 you should scald or immerse them in boiling water, and let 

 them remain in water until it becomes cold; sow imme- 

 diately, having previously prepared your plot of ground. 

 They then vegetate in the coming spring, as freely and as 

 easily as the well known asparagus seed. 



Let us urge upon our agricultural friends and all lovers 

 of fine hedges to give this beautiful and, we fully believe, 

 reliable hedge plant a trial. If you do not feel like making 

 a large investment in plants, try the seeds. You can easily 

 procure them, and plant some quarts or pints of them, 

 watch their growth carefully, and note your experience with 

 them, and you will not only confer much pleasure upon your- 

 self, but your efforts to introduce this valuable plant to a 

 more extended notice, will be a public benefit. 



Our appeal is for the Holly; plant its seeds; transplant 

 its small trees, and introduce again some of the rare plants 

 used in ancient gardening. Evelyn says, in the year 1664: 

 "Above all natural greens which enrich our home-born 

 stone, there is none certainly to be compared to the Holly. 

 Is there under heaven a more glorious 'and refreshing ob- 

 ject of the kind than an impregnable hedge of one hundred 

 and sixty-five feet in length, seven high and five in diameter, 

 which I can show in my poor gardens at any time of the 

 year, glittering with its armed and varnished leaves?" Thus 

 says Evelyn, a most practical lover of nature, in the early 

 history of the Holly. 



Now why cannot our American agriculturists take a hint 

 from the old man eloquent? He loved nature, and revelled 

 in the genial and the bright as revealed in the lilly, the 

 rose, and the Holly; all were but types to him of a great 

 and benificent Father, teaching through his works the won- 

 derful creations of his mighty power. 



The Holly seed, as I have before stated, should be gath- 

 ered in the fall months of the year, and treated as I have 

 named, and planted at once. If the ground is well pre- 

 pared, they will come up quite readily in the spring, being 

 quite hardy of themselves. 



Now readers of the Forest and Stream, and especially 

 those who are interested in the ornamental as well as prac- 

 tical—those who love the noble and elevating science of 

 ornamental gardening, how many of you will respond to 

 my appeal for the Holly? Commence this present fall; 

 gather and prepare the seed carefully, and deposit them in 

 the seed bed, looking to a green and bright germination in 

 the glorious spring time. Olipod Quill! 

 «$.♦♦> 



Century Plant.— The Century Plant on the premises of 

 Mr. Lee, now stands thirty-six feet high, and has about 

 forty bunches which contain upwards of a thousand buds. 

 The young plant on the same place is three feet high and 

 has ten large buds which are as far advanced as those on 

 the large plant. Upwards of two thousand/persons have 

 registered as visitors to these plants. 



The denizens of San Jose are paying twenty-five cents 

 apiece to see a Century Plant in bloom. There is scarcely 

 a momh in the year but one of these plants can be seen in 

 full bloom in Los Angles. 



This remarkable plant, is generally understood as bloom- 

 ing only once in a hundred years. As a general thing here in 

 California it blooms at from ten to fifteen years after plant- 

 ing, and if more attention was given to it, would bloom in 

 from six to ten years. 



This Plant (The Agate Americana or American Aloe) is 

 one of the most desirable plants that can be found to place 

 in large open lawns or parks as a show plant. It is a clean 

 and showy plant alw r ays during its growth, it is also a fine 

 hedge plant, and will prevent horses or cattle from* break- 

 ing in or out — it should be grown more extensively. — San 

 Jose, (Gal.) Express. 



Man, the Destroyer. — When nature out of her supplies 

 has bountifully provided for all dependent upon her, man 

 as often as not steps in to play havoc with what is left. 

 We know that the greed of man, allied to the food-wants of 

 our great and accessible seats of population, and, as in the 

 case of sea-fish, the comparatively easy acquisition of a 

 money-yielding commodity that costs nothing, has undoubt- 

 edly made an impression on various species of animated 

 nature. Grouse-moors, for example, are becoming in some 

 districts exhausted from over-shooting; and many kinds of 

 inshore fish, notably the haddock, are yearly becoming 

 scarcer, because of the incessant industry of our fishermen, 

 impelled to constant work by the pressing demand of the 

 public. Oysters are not nearly so plentiful as they were 

 wont to be, and no wonder, considering the enormous num- 

 bers that are brought to market. London alone requires 

 one billion of these delightful bivalves every year, whilst 

 Manchester, Liverpool, and other large towns could con- 

 sume a much larger number than they can obtain. Even 

 in France, where economy is a study, some kinds of ani- 

 mals are exhausted, nature having been overborne. The 

 oyster-beds of France, for example, have nearly all in turn 

 been dredged to death, so that it became necessary for man 

 to plant them anew; and in particular instances this has 

 been done with success. A French oyster-ground which 

 was barren in the year 1856, produced 820,000 francs in five 

 years' time. In Ireland the greed of man has despoiled 

 many of the natural beds of oysters. Other kinds of shell- 

 fish are yearly becoming more difficult to obtain; fisher- 

 men now experience a great scarcity of bait, and require to 

 proceed long distances to obtain supplies of mussels. Our 

 inshore lobsters arc annually becoming smaller, whilst men 

 have to proceed to greater distances to capture them. We 

 know, too, that the capercailzie had at one time almost 

 entirely disappeared from Scotland. The wild white ox 

 has vanished, and Shetland ponies are less plentiful. So 

 are whales; men go farther and find fewer of them now 

 titan they did fifty years ago. Seals, too, will in time become 

 scarce, so fierce has become the pursuit of man in search of 

 them. — Clumbers' Journal, 



-+- — 



AN OLD BILL OF FARE. 



» ■ 



IN her capacity of cook, Mrs. Woolly, (the Miss Leslie 

 of the time of Charles the First), catered for well-to-do 

 people. She gives us bills of fare "without feasting only 

 such a number of dishes as are used in great and noble 

 houses in their own family, and familiar friends with 

 them." A couple of examples will suffice to shew what 

 sort of dinners grand folks sat down to in the days of the 

 Merry Monarch. In summer-time the first course might be 

 A boiled or baked pudding; boiled chickens; stewed earn' 

 a Florentine; a calf's head, one half roasted, the other half 

 boiled; haunch of venizon; venizon pasty; a couple of fat 

 capons, or a pig. The second course: partridges; artichoke 

 pie; quails; cold pigeon pie; souced pig; salmon; tarts a 

 Westphalia ham. and dried tongues about it. In winter 

 the first course might consist of: collar of brawn; a capon 

 and white broth, two roasted neats' tongues, and an udder 

 between them ; a chine of beef roasted ; a shoulder of mut- 

 ton stuffed with oysters; a salad of divers herbs and 

 pickles; eel pie; three young turkeys in a dish; souced fish 

 The above to be followed by a quarter of lamb roasted- a 

 couple of rabbits; a kickshaw fried; mallard; cold venison 

 pasty; a dish of snipes; warden pie; tarts; sturgeon; pickled 

 oysters — cheese of all sorts, jellies, and sweetmeats cominjr 

 upon the table as soon as the meats are cleared away. The 

 total absence of soup, the lack of vegetables, and the sub- 

 stantial nature of the provender altogether, perhaps justi- 

 fies the outbreak: "Who are so weak as our English people! 

 for they eat so much of meat, that they distemper them- 

 selves with it; whereas if they did eat herbs, roots and 

 plants more freely, it would be better for them. Observe 

 the diet of other nations, they make savory meat, and do 

 not use half so much meat as we do! " We certainly are 

 an obstinate race in matters of eating and drinking; and 

 wc fear all the lecturing in the w r orld will not lessen the 

 consumption of meat in England by a single beefsteak.— 

 Chambers' Journal. 



THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS. 



Mr. Hubert Airy, in the last numjber of Nature, 'differs 

 somewhat respecting the flight of the eagle, as described by 

 Mr. Herschel, an article in regard to which was copied in 

 Our columns. Mr. Airy says ; 



"If there was no quiver of the wings perceptible 'at an 

 apparent distance of ten or twelve feet' — if the very tips of 

 the wings 'looked as steady as those of a stuffed specimen,' 

 then certainly the theory of self-support by muscular action 

 must be abandoned, and the problem is reduced to one in 

 which w T e have only to consider the weight and shape of 

 the bird with outspread wings, and the velocity and direc- 

 tion of the wdnd. 



Captain Herschel rejects (perhaps too hastily) the notion 

 of 'slants of wind,' and asks : 'What becomes of the hori- 

 zontal force ' of the wind ? Surely its effect would be to 

 balance the horizontally resolved portion of the bird's slant 

 fall, just as the vertically resolved portion of the slant cur- 

 rent of wind w T ould balance the vertically resolved portion 

 of the slant fall. 



Different degrees of inclination and force of the wind 

 might be met (within limits) by different degrees of slope 

 and spread of the wings. 



I must confess this is only theory. We want more obser- 

 vations, as keen and careful as Captain Herschel's, to ascer- 

 tain the force and direction of the wind attending this ar- 

 rest of motion in mid-air. Slant currents are common 

 enough on a small scale among house-wails, and on a larger 

 scale we may see how the wind pounces down on a land- 

 locked water, or presses up a mountain side. In a steady 

 wind, the shapes of hill and valley must cause certain regu- 

 lar currents variously inclined to the horizontal, and some 

 of these, I suppose, the eagles find and use. On the lee 

 side of a hill (as in the case given by Captain Herschel) 

 there would be a current rising from the eddy to join the 

 main course of the wind." 



-+•+- 



The Balance of Nature. — When man, from his desire 

 to obtain sport or food, destroys some particular species of 

 bird, beast, or fish, nature speedily places the matter before 

 him in such a way as to indicate the error of which he has 

 been guilty. Of this we have a striking and painful in- 

 stance in the case of France, where the foolish and cruel 

 practice of killing all sorts of birds has given latitude to 

 whole hosts of insects which prey on the crops. So too, 

 frequently, the gamekeeper remorselessly shoots down the 

 birds of prey that would kill the rats and other vermin 

 which, whenever they obtain the chance, devour the grouse 

 or eat their eggs. What is the result ? It is simply that 

 more grouse are destroj^ed in one way than in the other! 

 The more hawks that are shot the worse it becomes for the 

 grouse. The hawk, like the sparrow, has its mission, and 

 on a grouse-moor that mission would appear to be the weed- 

 ing out of unhealthy birds which, if allowed to live, might 

 perpetuate unhealthy progeny or breed disease, and so ruin 

 the moor. The stock is kept at its best by the weeding out 

 constantly performed by predatory birds; a scheme of na- 

 ture to maintain a healthy and vigorous breed. The econ- 

 omy of a grouse-moor is not, we think, sufficiently under- 

 stood. It would be well if a reliable estimate of its wild 

 population could be formed, so that it could be ascertained, 

 with more exactitude than is at present the case, what per' 

 centage of birds man might shoot, and how many grouse 

 per acre ought to be left, in order to multiply and replenish 

 the stock. Tt has been affirmed, that to the mania for over- 

 preserving game, we owe the grouse-plagues which have 

 more than once prevailed during these later years; and, at a 

 meeting of the British Association, it was asserted that, it 

 the kites, -falcons and hawks, once plentiful in Scotland, 

 had not during the past twenty years been so ruthlessly 

 killed off, the grouse disease would have been stamped out 

 before becoming epidemic, it being the business of those 

 keen-eyed forages of the wilderness to snap up all the weaK 

 and sickly birds they can find. A given number of acres 

 of heather will only breed and feed a given number ot 

 birds, and if more grouse is hatched than there is food for, 

 it follow s, as the merest matter of course, that the birds 

 will be weak and ill-fed. Nature, in short, has established 

 a balance, "which it would be presumptuous for man to imag- 

 ine he could improve by disturbing. — GJunitbrrs' Jocrntu. 



Advice to anglers— " Spare the rod." 



