MERRY CHRISTMAS 
ILEX OPACA 
Actual Photograph, Opposite. 
MERRY CHRISTMAS is the best all-round Holly I know. Very hardy, 
with foliage and berries of good color, it grows rapidly but not as compact 
as some. I almost cried three years ago when a frightened horse pulling a 
cultivator past this tree broke a half dozen large limbs off close to the 
trunk. Today the tree has grown out until it is almost perfect in shape 
again. This ability to fill out and shape up quickly is all too uncommon. 
One of my propagators tells me it is the only Holly he has ever rooted 
100‘, in quantity. 
I found this Holly some years ago near Bayville, N. J. With my men, 
I was tying up and digging a hundred large Hollies for a hedge. About 
noon a doe suddenly jumped from its bed way in under one of the trees 
we had been working around all the morning. We were about as 
frightened as the deer. It doesn't make sense that the deer could have 
remained hidden from us all the morning, but it did. 
MERRY CHRISTMAS was in this group and, being outstanding, was 
brought to my farm. Later it was transplanted high up in the Catskill 
Mountains, above Eldred, N. Y. No doubt it feels right at home, for there 
are deer all around it, so many of them that it is fenced in to save it 
from being eaten. It’s really cold there, as ice froze 32 inches on a lake 
two hundred feet away, last winter. 
However, when I got cuttings this summer I found MERRY CHRIST- 
MAS looking better than it did in the ‘deer’ woods in Jersey. This Holly, 
with wonderful foliage and bright berries, far from its natural habitat, de- 
lights and thrills all who see it. Here is a proven tree that can take it. 
You cannot buy a hardier, better Holly anywhere. 
Holly hedges keep dogs and trespassers out. Can be grown 
in sun or shade. Permanent, will live a hundred years. 
