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consisted of three wide borders of an old garden. That on 

 the west side is sheltered by a high hedge, on the south 

 partly by a wall and tall hedge, and on the east by a brick 

 wall, on which I found ScolopeiiJvnim, Aspkniuiii Nigrujii, 

 and Aspleuitun tvichomancs growing wild. The western 

 border had been utilised for poultry keeping, the southern 

 for black currant bushes and manure heaps, and the 

 eastern border by a miscellaneous lot of trees and fruit 

 bushes, of which the latter were taken up and a few 

 replanted. The western border was tackled first. All the 

 poultry paraphernalia was pulled down and burnt, cemented 

 floors (not German in this case !) dug up, and the whole 

 bastard trenched and very liberally treated during that 

 process with well-rotted manure and lime rubbish where 

 desirable. The south border was treated similarly, but 

 with less lime. The whole of the east border was also 

 bastard trenched, heavily manured, and plenty of oak leaf 

 mould incorporated. Unfortunately, through the difficulty 

 in getting sufficient skilled labour, the work was long and 

 tedious. I was fortunate in being able to procure four 

 tons of fine oak leaf mould, six tons of top spit from an 

 old meadow, two tons of silver sand, a quantity of 

 charcoal, bone meal, and three loads of mortar rubble. 

 This was made up into suitable composts for each species. 

 Special care was taken to spread the roots out on the 

 prepared composts (the natural soil is heavy clay), a 

 shovelful, or more if for a large plant, was placed in 

 each station, and then another carefully worked around 

 the fern, the labels correctly fixed, and the whole after- 

 wards well mulched with fairly-rotted stable manure. 

 Each species was planted in groups, in order to facilitate 

 inspection and to simplify treatment afterwards. A length 

 of water piping was run the whole length of the garden, 

 with two stand-pipes, to which the hose could be affixed. 

 Water was freely used during the growing season. To 



