160 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1891. 



should be stretched across the roof from eaves to eaves, and the 

 various lengths sewn together with coir twine. The outer post?* 

 should be covered with trellis work, for which teak battens crossing 

 diagonally or strong hand-made wire netting are the most suitable 

 materials. Creepers should be planted along the trellis-work, which 

 they should entirely cover, but they should on no account be allowed 

 to encroach upon any space of the roof. The interior of the Fernery 

 may be variously laid out and disposed of. If the object in view 

 is to cultivate only a few but all excellent specimens of plants, 

 chiefly required for decoration of drawing-rooms, etc., stages, shelves 

 or stands will be found most useful. If, on the other hand, the 

 principal aim is to create a picturesque effect in the Fernery itself, 

 it is desirable to lay out the ground so as to present an irregular 

 surface, and to sink the pots in the ground, a practice which 

 possesses very great advantages for the successful culture of most 

 plants. Another plan, which, as far as possible, meets both objects, 

 is to arrange the plants in groups on the level surface of the 

 ground. The posts should always, when feasible, be covered with 

 creepers, and no Fernery should be without one or more compara- 

 tively large water tanks, which not only offer an easily accessible 

 water-supply, but also in a very high degree benefit the plants by 

 keeping the atmosphere moist and refreshingly cool. A regularly 

 shaped Fernery is the easiest to construct, the cheapest, the most 

 economical in respect to space, and the most suitable for the plants we 

 desire to cultivate, and should, except in quite special cases, always be 

 preferred. The interior may however be laid out quite in 

 accordance with the owner's taste. A simple and not at all ineffec- 

 tive way is simply to group the plants round the posts and along 

 the side of the Fernery, leaving sufficient room for paths and 

 passages between them. It requires a little more considera- 

 tion, and a good deal more individual taste, to arrange the 

 plants so as quite to obscure the strictly regular features of the 

 structure, but this is not impossible, especially if the surface of 

 the ground is here and there slightly varied. The paths in the 

 Fernery should never be less than three feet wide, and should 

 be covered with a thick layer of shells or small pebbles, which 

 besides presenting a neat appearance have similar physical effects as 



