December 23, 1880. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
567 
tOMING EVENTS W 
23rd 
Th 
Sale of Orchids at Mr. Stevens’s Rooms. 
24th 
F 
26th 
S 
Christmas day. 
26th 
SUN 
1st Sunday after Christmas. 
27th 
M 
Bank Holiday. 
28th 
tu 
29th 
W 
CHRISTMAS. 
“ Deck the walls with Holly! welcome fuu and fo ly! 
Ever when December comes to sadness bid adieu 
Cold the winds and cruel; pile the fire with fuel; 
Eagerly to Christmas give a greeting warm and true.” 
TRONG faith have I in the virtue of a good 
^ hearty laugh as a promoter of health both 
of mind and body. What more fitting, then, 
to dispel the gloom of short days and murky 
skies, to cheer the sadness inseparable from 
the last days of the dying year, than the 
bright time-honoured festival of Christmas ? 
rom how many sources and from what a variety 
of things does it derive its brightness ! As year after 
year glides away, and the hand of Time lays a firmer 
grasp upon us, the mind developes a growing tendency to re¬ 
trospective views of the sunshine and shadow that chequer 
the swiftly fleeting days of our lives ; and those of us who 
wisely resolve to take bright and cheerful views of things, know 
full well that sadness and sorrow come to all of us sooner or 
later with such depressing effect as would be difficult to en¬ 
counter were it not for the cherished feeling of hopefully 
looking forward that has become inherent in our nature. Well, 
then, for this especial reason, as well as for many others, we 
hail the coming of Christmas once again, and make especial 
preparation to enjoy it as a time of family gatherings, of 
genial social intercourse that shall witness a strengthening of 
old friendships and the beginning of new ; for Christmas is 
the sworn enemy of selfishness, and a true promoter of kindly 
feeling. 
One of the brightest Christmas features is wanting this year 
_we have no berried Holly. In the woods here Holly abounds ; 
there are several thousands of trees but hardly a berry, much 
to our regret, for we have no substitute for it, and shall miss 
the gay effect of the bright scarlet berries both in our church 
decorations and our houses. The birds will miss them still 
more should the soil become frostbound for any length of 
time, and they are driven to seek food among the hedgerows 
and shrubs. Iris foetidissima has an abundant crop of its 
pods of scarlet berries, with which much may be done to atone 
for the barrenness of the Holly. In skilful hands this Iris is 
one of our most valuable hardy plants for decorative purposes. 
The pods are borne in clusters upon the ends of long stems 
springing out of and well above the long dark green Flag-like 
foliage, over which the weight of the fruit causes them to bend 
gracefully. When used in decoration we have only to copy 
Nature to be successful, arranging its foliage in pans of 
damp sand with the berry-bearing stems disposed among them 
precisely as they grow. But it is not merely for our Christmas 
decorations that we regret the scarcity of Holly berries. Many 
a poor family will it rob of the humble Christmas feast, for 
which the sale of Holty usually affords the means, as it often 
passes through the hands of two or three keen dealers before 
it reaches the London or Brighton markets. It is indigenous 
to the soil of this part of Sussex, and is usually collected from 
the woods and the hedgerows of garden and field, as well as 
from the thousands of bushes on the wild waste lands of Ash¬ 
down Forest, so that the labourer may contribute his bundle or 
two, and the small farmer his cartload to swell the huge 
waggonloads which are usually seen proceeding Londonwards 
along the main roads tending in that direction. Occasionally 
some adventurous spirit, having collected enough of an un¬ 
usually choice kind to load his market cart or van, has set off 
with it to Covent Garden, a distance of from thirty to forty 
miles, and will long afterwards proudly tell of the adventures 
and result of the journey. More than once has a certain 
shrewd man told me how he refused £5 for his cartload, and 
cleared 30s. more by selling it in small quantities. 
Mistletoe is not at all common in this neighbourhood, nor 
have I ever seen such clusters of it in Sussex as there used to 
be upon the grand old Apple trees in the orchard at Provender 
near Faversham. No pruning of root or branch they ever 
had, and yet for several generations they had borne Apples 
and Mistletoe in more than sufficient abundance for the 
wants of a large family. A single tree would often yield 
twenty bushels of fruit, so that a few failures had very little 
effect upon the regular supply. The old trees were always as 
attractive at this season of the year, with their huge mossy 
boles and large Mistletoe boughs, as they were in spring with 
their thousands of pink-tipped blossoms, and in autumn with 
their rosy-cheeked Pearmains or yellow Golden Pippins, some 
of which were always kept in reserve to be roasted for the 
wassail bowl on Christmas eve. Such trees are not common, 
nor dare I venture to advocate the planting of standards ; but 
my object in mentioning them is to try and induce everybody 
to introduce something more than trim keeping and high 
culture into their gardens—to impart features of lasting inter¬ 
est, objects of perennial beauty, elegant or picturesque, that 
cling to the mind and are cherished there among many a sunny 
memory and dear association. Plants and trees of an ordinary 
type do not usually effect this, and yet many of those which 
we recall are neither very “ rich nor rare." The Cork Tree 
at Linton, the Tulip Tree at The Mote, the Beeches at Chats- 
worth, the Traveller’s Joy at Pentillie Castle, the Spanish 
Chestnuts at Maresfield Park, the Scarlet Oaks at Alton Towers, 
the Lucombe Oaks at Carclew, the Ash trees at Pencarrow, the 
Pinus insignis at Lamorran, are all sunny memories upon 
which we love to dwell. But I must not further indulge in 
what to me are pleasant reminiscences, but will conclude with 
a hope that pleasant thoughts and happy moments may be 
fully enjoyed by every reader of the Journal as they are 
spending 
“A Merry Christmas." 
—Edward Luckhurst. 
SAWDUST FOR PROPAGATING. 
In reply to your correspondent “ Kitchen Gardener,” I have 
to say that all plants rooted in sawdust here have taken with 
singular rapidity to any soil or mixture of soils in which they 
No. 26.—Yol. I., Tin an Series. 
No. 16S2. —Yon. LXIY., Old Saiues. 
