WAR ON THE MISTLETOP

Hokitika Guardian, 11 February 1926, Page 4

WAR ON THE MISTLETOP

On the eve of Christinas word lias been sent forth throughout the length arid breadth of the United States that henceforth the mistletoe is to be regarded as a dangerous pest, wrote Frank Bennett on Dec. 22nd., in a London daily. Official measures are to l>o taken towards the extermination of this cherished thing-this pretty vegetable without which no Christmas is complete.

America hopes to rid herself of the parasite “in a few years.” This is a very hopeful view, but it is liardly likely to be fulfilled. America is not the first country ro realise tliat/thc mistletoe is a stubborn and self-assertive tiling. Somewhat difficult as it may he to propagate by artificial means, it has a habit of spreading itself far and wide through the natural medium of the birds. These, more often than not, deposit the seeds in the most inaccessible places so that nothing short of cutting down the parent tree would supply a sure and ready means of destroying the parasite?. In France, one believes, it has for long been a punishable offence to propagate mistletoe. In that country it appears to thrive naturally even better than it does in England, though there are places in this country where it could hardly find conditions more suitable to its growth. The observant traveller, for example, may notice on the Andover road, a few'miles out of Winchester, a private park in which a. number of limes, forming avenues to the house, are smothered with mistletoe. It may even ho found hereabouts growing on the hedgerows.

There nr? no restrictions in England on the growing of this strange plant, which is so destructive to those trees to which it owes its being. But in spite of that wo depend for our Christmas supplies of mistletoe only to a very s'mall extent on the home-grown article. It is easier, and probably much cheaper. in import what we need from Normandy and Brittany from which, districts up to the end of last week the Southern Railway had handled no fewer than -12,000 < rates and hampers filled with the berried sprays of that detestable parasite which is so much beloved.