Genre:

Regular Feature, Anecdote, Drollery

Subjects:

Botany, Acclimatization, Government, Political Economy, Nationalism

    Complains that the 'Congressmen who give so much time to the study of botany in our Agricultural Department' reject any attempt to legislate to protect 'American varieties' of mistletoe and holly against the 'considerable quantities' of English imports that arrive every Christmas, primarily because they assume that 'no amount of duties would change the character of our native plants'. Asserts, however, that it is 'perfectly well known that the grape (wine being well protected) by long cultivation here becomes refined and purged of those gross, earthy, highly fruity qualities which connoisseurs (when they have seen the label) so much detest in wine'. Argues that the true 'American Christmas sentiment' requires home-grown decorations, and notes that 'holly flourishes with more beauty and vigour in the South than in the North, and [...] mistletoe likes the favouring air of the Gulf States. The South is thus able to contribute something essential, in our traditions, to the Christmas festivities: and the North, in taking it, is conscious that the great country is our country'. Indeed, during America's 'period of alienation [i.e. the Civil War], the two sections, it seems, were in a kind of vegetable ignorance of each other's capacities to satisfy the finer sentiments of each'. (165)