112 ABOUT A FERN. - [CHAP. 
bole of a smooth-stemmed giant beech, where all is 
moss-grown and cool and twilight ; where moss and 
lichen and seedling fern are the only vegetation, yet 
all forming the most lovely microscopic fernery one 
could wish to see. And such lovely little corners are 
possible even to the pent-up dwellers in cities. An 
unsightly shady corner in a narrow, wall-enclosed 
back-yard may be easily turned into a thing of 
beauty without expense. It is the fashion for writers 
on fern-culture, in recommending these beautiful 
ferns to people who have no means of adorning their 
homes with the beautiful in Art, dogmatically to pre- 
scribe certain materials as being necessary for their 
cultivation. Among these materials will be found 
loam, peat earth, leaf-mould, silver sand, &c. A little 
thought should convince these well-meaning people 
that such a rigid prescription must tend to defeat the 
object in view. They wish to giadden and brighten 
the homes of the poor by the introduction of the 
most beautiful forms of Nature, but the poor in large 
cities find it difficult to obtain these materials, and to 
build up an outdoor fernery in the little back-yard 
would require large quantities of each. So the 
would-be fern-grower is repelled at once. But that 
such substances—however desirable they may be— 
are not an absolute necessity, we have proved through- 
out eight or nine years of fern-culture in the Metro- 
polis. The chief requisites are protection from the 
sun and wind, and plenty of percolating moisture. 
We will relate our experience of Fernery construc- 
tion. At the southern end of our little: plot of 
ground rose a brick wall some fifteen feet in height. 
