98 



EVERGREEN OAK. 



longer the case. I have frequently seen them 

 produced by hidividuals, and offered to the com- 

 pany, as bon-bons are in some countries, ^^-ith a 

 sort of apology for their small intrinsic value." 



The wood of the Ilex is dark, close-grained, 

 heavy, and very hard. It is also very durable and 

 flexible, and, says Eveljoi, is serviceable for 

 many uses, as stocks of tools, mallet-heads, mall- 

 balls, chairs, axle-trees, wedges, beetles, pms, and, 

 above all, for pahsadoes, and in fortifications. 

 Besides, it affords so good fuel, that it supplies 

 all Spain almost with the best and most lasting 

 of charcoals in vast abundance." Modern writers 

 on the subject confirm this account, and recom- 

 mend also its employment in ship-building. 



The largest Ilex in the vicinity of London 

 stands in the garden of Fulham Palace, and was 

 planted probably by Bishop Compton ; but this 

 tree attains its greatest size in the south of En- 

 gland. Loudon mentions a tree at Mamhead in 

 Devonshire, eighty-five feet high, the circumfe- 

 rence of the trunk being eleven feet ; and another 

 at the same place fifty-five feet high, with a trunk 

 twenty-two feet in circumference. At Mount 

 Edgecumbe, in Devonshire, there are some very 

 beautiful Ilex-trees growing within a few hun- 

 dred yards of the sea-shore ; and at Clowance, 

 in Cornwall, there is a splendid group of these 

 trees, the largest of which measures nine and a 

 half feet in circumference at three feet from the 

 ground : it there divides into two branches, one 

 of which is six feet in circumference, the other 

 five. Planted in groups as they here are, they 

 are beautiful not only from the striking contrast 

 which, both in summer and winter, they afford to 



