144 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



fresh that I could believe I had never ret written a line on the subject, 

 though I suppose I have actually written more than any one else — 

 whether good, bad, or indifferent, let others decide. In what I have 

 to say now, I shall speak on my own account, and as if I had no one 

 in the world to share the anxieties and delights of fern-growing with 

 me. I am compelled to this course by the diffidence of my chief friend 

 in the fern department, who, being of a retiring disposition, and above 

 all things dreading to be mentioned publicly (a la " not used to public 

 speaking") as a person of talent in this line, insets that I shall keep 

 her name and fame a profound secret, and take to myself, as of my 

 own obtaining, whatever results she may attain to in this most refined 

 and most delightful of all known hobbies. My wi — 1 should say, my 

 friend, companion, sometimes adviser, and occasional monitor and cor- 

 rector in fern-culture, outstrips me in patience and every other needful 

 quality in this pursuit, and ferns increase and multiply so fast that it 

 has become a permanent grievance in the household what is to be done 

 with them and where they are to go. My little corner greenhouse has 

 been given up to them, and in place of shelves and collections of 

 fuchsias — lor that was par excellence my fuchsia-house — there is now a 

 bank of ferns in it, and all I have to do with it is to prepare a basket 

 of compost, and otherwise louk on and admire from a reasonable 

 distance, just as people would peep at the Queen's coronet and jewels 

 through a keyhole if they had the chance. 1 don't know at all what 

 it is all to end in ; I can see plainly the ferns are to my flowers what 

 the seed of Jacob were to the Egyptians — they threaten to overrun 

 the land ; and I can see them creeping along the line of the privet 

 fence to take possession of the houses at the lower end of the garden, 

 but where, if they ever instal themselves, they will not live long, for 

 such roasting furnaces as tliose houses are it would be hard to find 

 elsewhere in the county of Middlesex. 



Well, to come to facts, I must tell you first, that many of the very 

 choicest stove ferns have been kept here through a very severe winter with 

 no help at all from hot water or any other source of heat, and are now 

 growing superbly. Most of those same ferns have had the help of hot 

 water in the boiler of the case during the previous winters, and it was 

 to test the possibility of keeping them without it, and hence of saving 

 the trouble it occasions to supply the case once or twice daily, that in 

 the winter of 1863 there was no artificial heat used at all. The expe- 

 riences of the past winter were obtained with two large cases of Miss 

 Maling's pattern.* One of them measures four feet in length by two 

 feet in breadth and height, and is fitted as represented in the sketch 

 which accompanies this. The other is of less dimensions, and is fitted 

 in the ordinary way, the surface being varied with bits of rock and 

 miniature mounds, so as to display to the best advantage the various 

 characters of the ferns. What is of more importance is this, that the 

 small case is filled with cocoa-nut-fibre waste alone, with a substratum 

 of crocks ; the large case is filled with fibry peat torn to shreds, with 

 special preparation in some instances for particular plants. The be- 

 haviour of the ferns is very different in one case to what it is in the 



* These cases are now made by Mr. Gray, Horticultural Builder, 36, Danyers 

 Street, Chelsea, London, S.W. 



