McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1885-01-15
"CHRlSTMAS GREENS"

Tor the custom OF welcoming the ami
versary of our Saviour's birth with
wreaths and branches. Some have
supposed it to have originated in the
fashion of the Greeks and Romans, who
crowned their heroes with laurel and
strewed boughs in their way, en-
blematic of joy and victory, and that it
is but meet the advent of the Prince of
Peace, a bloodless conqueror. should
be heralded with these marks of Joy.
Others, again, imagine it was to rep
resent the groves, which were Goods
first temples, and the style of the first
Christian churches which were built of
.swythen wands."
In England every house from the
palace to the cottage, is decked with
bay. laurel, holly, ivy and mistletoe in
ali the freshness of perennial verdure.
The practice seems to have been COM
menced by the Druids, who about this
time of the year cut the sacred mistle-
toe with a golden knife, and distributed
il as gifts to the people; these ancient
priests caused houses to be decorated
with evergreens in December, that the
sylvan spirits might repair to them
and remain unnipped by frost and cold
winds until milder season had re-
newed the foliage of their darling
ahodes.
In former ages all the above named
plants were held in superstitious rever-
ence and were believed to be especially
repugnant to evil spirits; as late as the
year 1444 it is said by an old chronicler
that on "the first of February St.
Paul's steeple in London was fired by
a great storm of thunder and lightning,
and with great labour quenched; and
toward the morning of Candlemas day,
at the Leaden Hall in Cornhill, a
standard of bay-tree, being set up in
the midst of the pavement fast in the
ground, naile' full of holm and ivy,
was torn up and cast down by the
malignant spirit, as was thought, and
the stones of the street were cast into
divers houses, so that the people were
sore aghast at the great tempest"
In those times Christmas sports and
festivities were often kept up during
forty days, terminating at Candlemas,
the second of February.
With us, of late years, the custom of
"Christmas green's" as they are
quantity termed by old writer's, is be-
coming more common, and in the large
cities every house, however poor, is
trimmed with green in honor of Christ
mas, or tree or branch laden with
bonbons for the children.
purpose to call attention to the
plants of our country which have ia
ken the place of the historic cnes of
our mother land and are honored
among us as Christmas green's.
In Maine, the most northeastern
State of our Union, where the winters
are long and cold and unpropitious to
the growth of herbaceous evergreens,
the different species of the conyere. or
pine family, are employed for de ora
ting the churches. Large trees of the
black double spruce (abies aasqra) and
white single spruce (a6ies dlba), with
the elegant pyramiual-shaped silver,
or balsam fir (a6ies 6alsamitera), are
cut in tie woods and fastened up IN
the churches, producing a truly for
est-like effect, while the odor of the
last-named tree diffuses a spicy fra
GRANGE, emblematic of the franklin
cense offered by the Magi. In some
localities branches of the hemlock
spruce (abies canddensis) are formed
into wreaths; its delicate, glossy,
green leaf and fairy-like cones produ-
eng pleasing effect. In other New
England States, especially near the
large towns, where pine trees cannot
be had for the mere cutting, the varl-
rious species of the lycopodium, called
running evergr cen, club moss, etc.,
etc, are in request. These are gath
cred in great quantities by the country
people, who employ the long winter
evenings in tying chem together in
wreaths; the bright vivid green of
these plants contrasts prettily with
the small trees of the white pine( p,n,ss
strobuS) and hemlock with which thew
are intermingled.
In the Middle States, although the
lycopodia are used yet, the glory of
their woods, the American laurel (kal-
mia lGhfcla) forms a magnific, ntly
rich wreath. unsurpassed by any other.
This shrub belongs to the natural
order of ericacae and was dedicated by
the great Linnaeus to his pupil, Peter
Kahn, Swedish botanist no travelled
in this country more than a century
ago. 1t had been previously sent %
England by John Bartram. Peter Col
lipsin, in writing to him about it in
1857, ten years before Kalm's visit,
calls it ''chamaerhododendr 'bay
laurel and '.ivy," and pronounccs it
the most elegant shrub that has been
discovered in the province. With
many others of our compatriots, we
think this genus might have been ded-
icated with propriety to John Bartram,
our earliest American botanist, keep
ing his memory green in monument
of perennial verdure, over the noun
tains of his own state and throughout
his native land.
Although the mountain laurel is
found scattered through the New
England states, growing plentiful in
some localities, yet it never attains the
size and beauty it does on the Allie
gheny range in Pennsylvan a, and
southwark. In this section it NAV be
seen in its greatest glory, often form