The most remarkable holly grove known to me is in the park of Gordon Castle, covering a steep bank overlooking what used to be the Bog o' Gicht, but now a fertile holm. It is not known whether these hollies are of natural growth or planted, but they are evidently of great age; indeed, they are mentioned as remarkable in a description of Gordon Castle written in 1760--154 years ago. There are about five hundred trees in the grove, irregularly scattered along the bank, fifty-four of them being crowded into the space of about a quarter of an acre. But alas! one may look in vain for seedlings which might ensure the perpetuation of this ancient grove; all that may spring up are greedily devoured by rabbits. Talking of seedlings, the propagation of hollies from seed requires to be set about in light of the fact that the seed requires a year of repose before germinating. The readiest way, therefore, is to lay the berries in moist sand for twelve months, after which the seeds may be sown in a nursery bed, where they will soon show signs of life. The largest, though not the loftiest, holly I have ever seen is the remarkable tree at Fullarton House, near Ayr. It stands upon a shaven lawn, which is greatly to the detriment of its nourishment, and it has lost much of its height through decay of the upper branches. But it has a single hole of 8 feet, measuring at the narrowest part, 3 feet from the ground, 11 feet 3 inches in girth. The spread of branches is 189 feet in circumference. Having been cultivated for centuries as a hedge and shrubbery plant, the holly has sported into a great variety of forms and colours, none of them, to my taste, the match of the wild type for beauty, and some of them mere ugly caricatures thereof. The best variegated forms are of ancient descent--namely Golden Queen and Silver Queen, which are quite as vigorous and bear fruit as freely as the type. These are both very beautiful; as to the other varieties, the world would be no loser if they were all extirpated, unless the quaint little hedgehog holly, described by Parkinson in 1640, were retained as a curiosity. To this doom, however, I certainly would not consign the yellow-berried holly, which gives a fine contrast with the common scarlet-berried kind, and is stated by Cole (writing in 1657) to have been found in a wild state near Wardour Castle. John Evelyn wrote in 1664 of a variety with white berries; Loudon also referred to this, and also to one with black berries; but I have neither seen these varieties nor met with anyone who had. It is doubtful whether both writers have not been misled by hearsay. Evelyn employed all the resources of typography to express his enthusiasm for this fine evergreen:--