364 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
The holly with its beautifully shaped 
leaves, and clusters of bright crim- 
son berries, is, undoubtedly, one of 
our most attractive evergreens, but the 
leaves soon lose their vivid green when 
placed in a dry and hot room, otherwise 
it would outrank all our native evergreen 
trees. Last year several cases of Eng- 
lish holly were sent to New York dealers 
as an experiment, but it proved to be a 
failure, in consequence of the leaves fall- 
ing off after their long journey across the 
Atlantic ocean. 
The best bird-lime for catching birds, 
mice, and other small animals, is made 
from the middle bark of the holly, which 
is well bruised and boiled in water for 
four or five hours. The water is then 
poured off, and the bark is placed in pits 
dug in the earth, and covered with stones. 
At the end of a fortnight or three weeks, 
it will have changed into a sort of mucil- 
age by the action of fermentation ; it is 
then pounded in a mortar until reduced 
to a paste, washed and kneaded in soft 
water to rid it of all earthy or vegetable 
matter ; it is again placed in the earthen 
jar for four or live days to purify itself 
by fermentation, after which it is put uj) 
for use. Thousands of young holly trees 
are manufactured every year into walk- 
ing canes ; they are stained a deep black 
in imitation of ebony, and the wood be- 
ing close and heavy, very few people 
know the difference when highly pol- 
ished. 
Fig. 5.— THE HARTFORD CLIMBING FERN. 
The *'climbling fern" or "Hartford 
fern," is one of the most beautiful of all 
our native ferns. The striking delicacy, 
beauty of foliage, and graceful habit of 
this fern adapt it to decorative purposes 
in its green state; or when carefully 
pressed and dried, it is formed into 
graceful festoons and attached to white 
curtains, or draped around ^pictures. 
Thousands of sprays of this fern are 
gathered and pressed every year ,1o be 
disposed of by florists during Christmas 
times. So great became the demand for 
it, that there was danger of its becoming 
extinct in the locality at East Windsor 
Hill, Connecticut, where it grew in great 
abundance. So large were the quanti- 
ties taken away yearly, that an act was 
passed by the Legislature forbidding its 
wanton destruction. There are two 
methods of drying and pressing this 
fern ; one is known as the dry pressed," 
and the other as the " hot pressed " ; the 
"dry pressed " consists in placing the 
ferns between sheets of paper or dryers, 
which are changed every few days. The 
"hot pressed " is where all moisture is 
evaporated from the ferns by means of 
hot flat irons, which are rapidly passed 
over the ferns; the dry pressed ferrs 
always retain their colors best. 
A Skate Foot-Scraper. 
INCE the advent of the beauti- 
fal strapless skate, thousands 
of the old-fashioned " turn-ups '' 
' and English skates with their 
numerous straps and buckles, have been 
cast aside. In my travels I have come 
across them hung up in woodsheds, cel- 
lars and barns, rusty and uninviting- 
Fig. 1, 
looking. No one cared to destroy them, 
as they had been in the family so many 
years, and yet there seemed to be no use- 
ful way of disposing of them. Having 
just such a rusty and mouldy pair of 
" turn-up " skates in my possession since 
