THE FERN HOUSE. 109 



is certainly a curiosity: it neither requires soil nor 

 water to grow in, but merely to be fastened upon a block 

 of rustic wood, or it may be placed in a basket or 

 seed-pan or pot. If grown in the first-named way, it 

 should have a little moss and be tacked on to the 

 block, or the pan or pot may be filled up tight with 

 moss, and the plant tied on, and then suspended by 

 a wire from the roof of the fernery or green-house, 

 where it will grow for many years without any further 

 trouble. This plant rather differs from the Polypody 

 vulgare which we find growing so plentifully upon 

 wood along the road sides, and which seems to draw 

 its nourishment from the branch to which it adheres, 

 while the Alcicorne lives upon its own natural resources. 

 The Wall Kue or Asplenium Ruta-Muraria and 

 Ceterach, which grow upon dry walls, are of this self- 

 sustaining class, but there are none that seem capable 

 of this so much as the first-named. 



To be successful in propagating Ferns, the house 

 should be close, low and warm, having the walls 

 lined with turfy peat-sods, the under side of which 

 should be placed outermost and kept up either by long 

 hook nails, or wall hooks, or by bars of wood fastened 

 with hooks to the wall. Some moss may be stuffed 

 between the joints of the sods, which will retain 

 moisture and serve as receptacles for seed, which may 

 be sown all over these sod-lined walls. The seed should 

 be first well soaked with water by syringing, and then 

 sown all over the walls and never disturbed afterwards. 

 Neither should they be heavily syringed, for this would 

 wash the seed off. Peat sods may also be placed under 

 the seeding fronds which will catch the seed as it falls. 

 To be successful in raising new sorts, gather the 



