XXVI INTRODUCTION. 



vator in the country could adduce his proofs of this. 

 I will cite one only. 



On a hot day in the summer of 1837, I brought 

 home in a tin box about a dozen seedlings of Lastrasa 

 dilatata, which I had picked out of moss ; each had a 

 single frond of very small size, and extremely minute, 

 white, and delicate roots. Having a wide-mouthed 

 phial at hand, I put in it a small quantity of very 

 wet earth; and then passing a pin through the 

 single frond of one of the seedlings, and pinning it to 

 a cork previously covered with wet wash-leather, I 

 fixed the cork firmly in the phial, and left the fern 

 hanging at the head of the pin with its roots down- 

 wards. Some hours afterwards I looked at my little 

 fern, and found it exhibited no symptoms of wither- 

 ing; whereas the other seedlings, left carelessly on 

 the ground beside the phial, were completely dead, 

 and crumbled to powder between the finger and 

 thumb. I hung up the phial by a string to a nail in 

 the garden wall, and here it was hanging twelve 

 months afterwards. The cork was fastened exactly 

 as I left it, but the phial was filled with something 

 green, which, on taking it out, proved to be a plant 

 of the common chickweed, but to my great joy the 

 little fern still hung from the pin ; its roots were 

 longer, it had made two fronds, and the original frond 

 had withered, but was still strong enough to support 

 the fern. This instance is as good as a thousand. 

 The exposure of the roots, which is no part of Mr. 

 Ward's plan, still adds a proof of its efiicacy. The 



