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of trouble, watering is only required at long intervals, the 

 tumblers can be kept clean outside and with the growing 

 moss inside and the pretty ferns surrounding them look far 

 better than pots. We strongly recommend further 

 experiments in this direction to our members, especially 

 with Cetevach, which remains yet to be experimented upon, 

 and is a by no means easy subject to deal with. 



C. T. D. 



FERN HUNTING. 

 During the holiday season a great number of visitors to 

 the country amuse themselves by collecting ferns, and on 

 their return to town we may see on the railway termini 

 the primary results of their quest in the shape of baskets, 

 hampers and bundles of ferns mingled with their luggage, 

 indicating a taste for the natural beauty and grace of these 

 pretty plants. Looking, however, backwards and forwards 

 from this particular point of view, we shall become aware 

 of two very serious drawbacks to the true fern lover's 

 appreciation of such popular Fern hunting. In the first 

 place, if we examine the ferny sources whence these 

 plants have been derived, we shall frequently find them 

 ravaged and despoiled, and it may be even entirely denuded 

 by remorseless and repeated raids. Too often we may find 

 abundant evidence that the plants have been rooted up at 

 one place only to be thrown away at another, when 

 through utter lack of care they have become wilted and 

 unsightly, while invariably at places of popular resort, even 

 in our ferniest counties, we must travel far afield to find the 

 ferns in anything like their natural robustness and beauty. 

 So much for the backward aspect of these Fern hunting 

 expeditions, which embraces, as we see, a very large 

 admixture of that vandalism which is gradually denuding 

 the country of many of its rarest and most precious native 

 plants. As regards the forward view, i.e. the fate of such ac- 

 quisitions, were it the case that the ferns thus removed were 

 carefully and appreciatively tended when they reach their 



