THE ORIGINAL BOSTON FERN 
This fern, familiar to every plant-lover, has been particularly useful to breeders because it is 
constantly producing new forms—it is an 
“ever-sporting’”’ variety. From this parent 
type sixty-five new varieties have been introduced to the trade, some of which 
have proved valuable and been retained, while others which were not of superior value in 
any one respect have disappeared. 
Probably the possibilities of the Boston fern are by 
no means exhausted, and it therefore offers an attractive material for amateurs as well as 
commercial breeders, since it can be propagated indoors, with little space, and thereJare 
no great difficulties to be overcome or expenses to be incurred. 
leaf moid. The advantage of this lay 
in its moisture absorbing and retaining 
property. The surface of leaf mold 
being uneven, the spores sown will fall 
on the projecting tips of the small 
pieces of leaf mold where the moisture 
hardly rises by capillarity but the spore 
is surrounded with a saturated moist 
atmosphere; they may also fall down in 
between the leaf particles where they 
come in contact with a microscopic 
film of moisture. All the intermediate 
conditions exist also, so that no matter 
what the moisture requirement of the 
226 
(Fig. 18.) 
spores, some of them will fall in a 
position where conditions are favorable. 
As to containers, a clean pot not less 
than 6 inches in diameter seems to be 
the best suited for commercial work, 
For research work, where the exclusion 
of any foreign spore is necessary, the 
use of large preparation dishes with a 
depth of at least 34-inch gives the best 
results. 
The preparation of the medium in 
which to sow the spores differs also 
from that suggested for other ferns. 
The bottom of a clean pot of two-thirds 
