r64 



patronize the hawkers, who are doing their best (or worst) 

 to denude our ferny counties of their treasure. Let such 

 people once realize how easily they can secure a stock of 

 these fine evergreen ferns by such simple bulbil growth, 

 and we have almost succeeded in shutting their doors in 

 the face of " the man with sack and trowel." 



In my own evolution, the next stage was an attempt to 

 grow a piece of Bracken rhizome, taken up one April and 

 planted on a shelf in my greenhouse. This grew rapidly, 

 and actually pushed behind the shelf, crawled down the 

 wall until it bridged the three-feet gap, reached the ground, 

 and burrowed into it. Evidently the shallow soil of the 

 shelf provoked it to this great effort. Since then I have 

 had a great respect for the vigour and resource of our 

 commonest fern. 



A relative then sent me a tiny frond of a fern, and asked 

 me to name it. It had been grown in a living-room, and 

 much ill-treated, so, in those early days of my fern love, it 

 is scarcely surprising that I was baffled. Later on, how- 

 ever, I was given a division of the plant. In the greenhouse 

 it speedily developed evergreen fronds, at least twelve times 

 the size of the piece I was desired to name. When the 

 happy day arrived, on which my wife " spotted " on a 

 second-hand bookstall a copy of Mr. t)ruery's first book, 

 " Choice British Ferns,'' I discovered from the plates that 

 I possessed a specimen of the Welsh Polypody. 



Next came my attendance at one of ^Ir. Druery's 

 lectures to the National Amateur Gardeners' Association. 

 This was a revelation. I made the acquaintance there of 

 both Mr. Druery and ^Nlr. Green, and left the Hall an 

 absolute convert to the British Fern cult. Much of my 

 subsequent enjoyment has been due to several kindly 

 gifts of plants, bulbils, and spores from Messrs. Druery, 

 Green, and Whitwell. 



My only wild "discovery," if it can be so styled, was a 

 bracken seedling that appeared on some peat from an 

 Essex common. It proved to be a nicely crested form. 



