The following notes regarding the mistletoe, which we extract from Hardwicke's Science-Gossip, may be interesting to our readers. The writer informs us that 'the mistletoe abounds far too much in the apple orchards of Worcestershire and Herefordshire, but passes over pear-trees, and long observation has only given me two or three instances where pear-trees had mistletoe upon them. The apple was known to the Druids, and it has been suggested that the wily priests furtively transplanted their mystic plant from apple-trees, where it was sure to grow, to oaks, where otherwise it would be unlikely to be found. This is rendered not improbable by what Davies says in his Celtic Researches, that the apple-tree was considered by the Druids the next sacred tree to the oak, and that orchards of it were planted by them in the vicinity of their groves of oak. This was certainly an astute plan for keeping up the growth of the mistletoe.

'Blackbirds, thrushes, and fieldfares are fond of the mistletoe-berries, and when their bills get sticky from eating them, they wipe their mandibles on the branches of trees where they rest, and from the seeds there left enveloped in slime, young plants take their rise. I have thus observed mistletoe bushes extending in long lines across country where tall hawthorns rise from hedges bounding the pastures; for, next to apple-trees, mistletoe is most plentiful upon the hawthorn. But rather curiously, in modern times, the parasite has shewn a predilection for the black Italian poplar, which has been much planted of late years; and wherever in the Midland counties this poplar has been planted, the mistletoe is sure to appear upon the trees in a short time. The lime is also very often obliged to support the plant, which disfigures its symmetry, raising huge knots upon its branches; and I have observed limes that must have nourished protuberant bushes for thirty years or more. The maple, the ash, and the willow have frequently mistletoe bushes upon them; but common as the elm is, that tree almost entirely escapes an intrusion; and indeed I never but once saw mistletoe upon an elm. On the oak it is very uncommon in the present day, and where apparent, it is on trees of no very great age, whatever their descent may be.

'My friend Professor Buckman, who has written economically upon orchards in his useful book on Farm Cultivation, asserts that while the mistletoe is hurtful to the tree in hastening its decay, yet in apple-trees it has the effect of pressing on their maturity and fruit-bearing earlier than would be the case without the parasite, which urges a quicker growth upon its foster-parent. The tenant of an orchard would thus be benefited for a few years, though premature decay would be the result.

'Authors may differ as to the etymology of mistletoe, but it appears to me that our common English name has no very recondite origin. Mistion is an obsolete old English word, used, however, as late as in the writings of Boyle; and this is defined in Dr Johnson's original folio edition of his Dictionary as the state of being mingled. Now this is truly the condition of our plant, which is intermingled with the foliage of other trees, and mixes up their juices with its own; and is indeed in rural places still simply called the mistle. If to this we add the old English tod or toe, signifying bush, we have at once the derivation, meaning the mingled bush, mixed up and growing among foliage dissimilar to its own. Still, in winter its stiff and leathery evergreen leaves and dense bushy aspect give it a visible position on its own account; and thus the epithet of frigore viscum given it by Virgil is peculiarly applicable. It is certainly remarkable that the hanging up of mistletoe in houses for mirthful purposes and emblematical of Christmas should so long endure that the Midland towns have their markets filled with it as Christmas approaches, and loads of it find a ready sale in the north of England (and Scotland), where the plant is a rarity, if found at all.'