JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HI STOR} SOCIETY, 1891. 



of the house more commonly than at present would spend a 

 short time daily id them, and there find an interesting and 

 pleasant occupation in the care and nursing of their plants. It 

 will perhaps be remembered what excellent specimens of ferns 

 and other plants from Ferneries were exhibited at last year's 

 flower-show, and I should be singularly mistaken if such splendid 

 results were not in several instances due to the tender care of ladies, 

 and as a fact a lady carried off a great number of prizes for parti- 

 cularly well-grown plants. I am not an advocate of the recent 

 proposal, that ladies should enter upon the field as market- 

 gardeners; I know by personal experience that this branch of gar- 

 dening to be carried out profitably requires a great amount of per- 

 sonal labour for which a lady is physically quite unfit, and that the 

 market-gardener's life is so rough that nobody who is acquainted 

 with it could seriously think of ladies carrying out this calling 

 without at the same time throwing overboard the belief in the many 

 qualities of ladies, by which they are and always will remain 

 superior to men. The work in the Fernery, however, is just suitable 

 for ladies, it principally requires neatness and patience, and to a 

 very great extent a certain kind of nursing ; I must however not 

 avoid to mention, that the most serious enemies to the plants are 

 caterpillars, crickets, bandicoots and rats, which however are not 

 of a very savage nature, and certainly do not deserve so much re- 

 spect, as, I am afraid, most ladies think is due to them. Frogs, 

 toads and occasionally snakes are other inmates of the Fernery, 

 these however should be rather encouraged as they are quite harm- 

 less, and do much good. Spiders in charming variety, from the 

 size of a butterfly to almost microscopic dimensions are generally 

 friends of the plants (the red spider has no chance of living in our 

 damp atmosphere) and should not be destroyed as long as their pre- 

 sence does not interfere with the tidy appearance of the plants or the 

 Fernery. The principal work required in a Fernery is potting, 

 propagation, watering, syringing, cleaning and training. Potting 

 should be done carefully, a good rich but porous soil should be used 

 for some kinds of plants, as most foliage plants adding a liberal 

 quantity of decayed manure, while for ferns only fertilisers of vege- 

 table origin, such as leaf mould, rotten fibres of palms, refuse of 



