THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
253 
bark will be rugged, the limbs gnarled, and altogether the trees 
assume a wizened and antique aspect, although the stem by no 
means would betoken an age to correspond. Such trees bear 
* small fruit, but, perhaps, more abundantly than those that keep 
up a more vigorously abundant leafy constitution. Hence, then, 
mistletoe in an apple tree lias one of the effects of pruning, as 
it arrests that development of leaf, which is one of the causes of 
the production of fruit, and is, indeed, the reason for trees 
fruiting better under judicious pruning. 
The good or evil, then, which may result from the presence 
of mistletoe w r ould seem to be pretty much a question as to 
whether the trees in which it occurs are to be calculated upon 
in the position of the landlord or the tenant. If the latter it 
may be pretty confidently stated that he derives good rather 
than evil from its presence. It is true the trees wear out that 
are so fed upon, but then their destruction by this mode is a 
a matter of time, and may well enough last out the longest 
lease. 
The landlord, however, who would wish to see an orchard 
grow vigorously, and to remit it in that state to his posterity, 
will care little for early fruiting in any great quantity; it is 
obviously therefore to his interest to have the trees kept clear 
from mistletoe, as then the bark keeps smooth instead of rough, 
either by age or a cause similar in its effects, in which case the 
trees are easier kept clean and free from insect blights, which in 
unhealthy trees are ever so rife. 
Of course, in timber trees this parasite is an unmitigated pest, 
feeding as it does on those very juices of the foster parent by 
which the wood of the tree is built up. 
From these remarks we conclude that curious as is the 
mistletoe, and albeit however interesting and exciting may be 
the customs in which it is introduced, yet that this parasite is in 
reality little less than a weed to the farmer. 
Still, though this is so, we see by the Gardener's 
Chronicle that Richard Smith and Co., nurserymen, of Worces¬ 
ter, advertise apple trees with mistletoe growing on them* and as 
this is the favourite tree of the parasite, there can be no doubt 
that the interest of the subject will lead many people to grow 
specimens of these as a ready way not only of securing the 
mystic plant for Christmas usages, but as a means of observing 
its curious natural history. 
