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in the dark, but have the benefit of the advice of all 

 the experienced writers on fern matters. But, without 

 deliberately neglecting all this mass of information at my 

 disposal, I have had to learn things by bitter experience. 

 For instance, everyone knows that young fronds grow 

 towards the light, and that a fern can only be quite 

 symmetrical when the light com.es from above and from 

 all around the plant. When the plant is growing near a 

 window the light reaches it mainly from one direction, 

 and the fronds tend all to grow in that direction. How 

 often has Mr. Druery — and others, too — told us not to 

 try and make the fronds grow straight by giving the pot 

 a daily twist ? One has had to learn by experience, 

 however, that plastic operations of this sort are useless, 

 and that, after all, the only sensible thing to do is to keep 

 the pot strictly in one position the whole time. The stems 

 are, at least, fairly straight instead of being a nightmare 

 of zig-zags and corkscrews, as in the former case. 



Watering, too, has caused many troubles, little and big. 

 I was on the point of saying that I had read all that has 

 been written on the subject of watering. At any rate, I 

 have read quite a lot. Yet one has had to learn by 

 experience how to avoid the pitfalls one is constantly 

 warned against. In any given collection of ferns the 

 individuals vary enormously in their water requirements. 

 A great deal depends upon such factors as the character 

 of the soil, size and thickness of pot, the relative amount 

 of soil and root, the season of the year — and even daily 

 changes of temperature — and the particular variety of fern, 

 and so on. The trouble is to know how to estimate the 

 relative importance of each factor in any given case. A 

 rock-loving fern naturally wants less moisture than one 

 that grows in bogs. A thick-fronded fern (such as 

 5. V. kcvatoidcs) does not droop as readily as a delicate 

 Lady Fern would, even under precisely the same condi- 

 tions. But however much one tries to bear these things 



