Walsh. — On Public Ferneries. 621 



both from its climatic and topographical conditions, as a con- 

 servatory for indigenous plant and animal life. Still, even 

 though more adequate conservation of these reserves were 

 made than is at present attempted, their advantages are not 

 directly available to the bulk of our town populations. We 

 want something nearer at hand, something that we can see 

 and enjoy as a portion of our daily life. We are familiar with 

 the blue-gum and the Pinus insignis, with the Norfolk pine 

 and macj-ocarpa ; the oak and the elm and the poplar are 

 conspicuous in our streets and suburban allotments. But of 

 the indigenous vegetation most of us know very little indeed. 

 In fact, there are many native-born New-Zealanders who 

 could not distinguish between a rimu and a kauri, and who 

 are obliged to form their idea of the most beautiful forest in 

 the world from the mutilated specimens of the pohutukawa 

 which can hardly be said to adorn the coast-line of our 

 harbour, or from the scrubby survivals in the Domain that are 

 being rapidly exterminated by the more vigorous growth of 

 the imported article. 



Now, it seems to me that what is wanted in view of this 

 state of things is a public fernery, as part of the recreational 

 outfit — if I may use the term — of every important colonial 

 town. I hope the time is not far distant when, as in the sister 

 colonies, public opinion will sanction the expenditure of a 

 sufficient sum to form and maintain a botanical garden in 

 each of our chief centres of population, in which specimens of 

 every native plant will find a home ; but for the present it is 

 perhaps best to be satisfied with a venture on a more modest 

 scale. We have public parks, public libraries, public art gal- 

 leries and museiuns ; why not public ferneries ? The cost 

 would be proportionately trifling, while the advantages are so 

 self-evident that it is almost unnecessary to enumerate them. 

 Every visitor to the late Dunedin Exhibition must recollect 

 that the fernery, though a mere temporary affair, on a com- 

 paratively insignificant scale, was one of the most popular of 

 the sights in connection with the undertaking. Day after 

 day, and all day long, the globe-trotter and the lately-arrived 

 settler might be seen comparing the almost tropical luxuriance 

 with the more scanty products of less favoured climes, while 

 even to the native-born New-Zealander the wealth of assembled 

 beauty was a revelation as grateful as it was unexpected. 

 What this ephemeral " side-show" was to the visitors to the 

 Dunedin Exhibition a public fernery would be to our settled 

 population, only on a much more perfect and extended scale. 

 To the inhabitants of the city it would supply a permanent 

 and unfailing source of wholesome enjoyment at once elevat- 

 ing and refining. It would educate the taste of the country 

 settler, and help to arouse his interest in the protection of 



