VI.] ABOUT A FERN. 109 
spot fully a dozen species of ferns can be obtained, 
many of them in the greatest profusion. Acres of the 
Northern Hard-fern crowd each other close among 
the heather, and from the hedge-banks and the forks 
of trees hang great clusters of bright-green Poly- 
podies. Here at an altitude of over eight hundred 
feet you may in early spring find the Broad Buckler 
with the last year’s fronds still green and fresh upon 
it, But then it is protected well from the cutting 
winds by a fir wood fringed with hollies, yet still the 
situation does seem too exposed to suit this species. 
In cultivation it must be thoroughly protected both 
from wind and sun, when its graceful broad arching 
fronds will have a most beautiful effect. But expose 
it to the wind, however little, and it will become one 
of the most unsightly objects, and a libel upon the 
character of ferns. It is thoroughly suitable for 
indoor culture, in a room with a northern aspect 
(which all ferns require). Here it will become, in 
eracefulness, second only to the Lady-fern, and will 
retain its fronds all through the winter. 
But it is in the counties of Devon and Cornwall 
that we must seek the ferns if we would see them in 
all their natural luxuriance and plentifulness. Every 
hedge harbours continuous lines of Polypody, whilst 
from the sides of the ditch below fresh-green Hart’s- 
tongues over a yard in length abound. Down the 
deep narrow lanes, whose walls are built of flakes, 
chipped from the rocks below, where the trees on 
either bank, extending their arms to each other 
across the top, form a cool arcade through which the 
breezes come from the bay on which we look down 
