SCARCITY OF MISTLETOE.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1921, Page 12

SCARCITY OF MISTLETOE.

WAR ST3I-FED SUPPLIES. Mistletoe and Christmas trees have been very scarce tnd expensive since 1914. Tae icason for this is quite simple. Most of our mistletoe comes from Franco, and until the war most of our Christmas trees came from Norway and Germany. The beautiful glass ornaments of all. shapes, colors and sizes, and practically all the toys which used to decorate Christmas trees, were, like the tree itself, made in Germany. Of course, a certain number of trees came from our own counties. Surrey, for example, supplies about 80,000 a year, but this is nothing lilce the quantity required. Until Christmas, 1914, the farmers of Brittany and Normandy sent us many tons of mistletoe, which they had been cultivating specially for the English market. The quayside at Dieppe was piled high with the whiteberried plant, and' scores of steamers laden with it sailed for England just, before Christmas. Dieppe alone sent 150 tons of mistletoe across, and St. Malo sent 400 tons, while other French ports added to the mistletoe harvest.