40 THE FERN PARADISE. 



And if a journey anywhere to green fields and 

 green trees be delightful, how much more in- 

 tensely enjoyable it must be to speed away to 

 the ferny lanes of Devonshire ! How many of 

 those, we wonder, who have never visited that 

 exquisitely beautiful county, can have the smallest 

 idea of the inexpressible loveliness of its green 

 and ferny lanes ? 



Can we induce those who have never explored 

 the "garden of England" to do so without delay? 

 We will at least try. We have in a previous 

 chapter explained that recently during a summer 

 visit we roughly noted down our impressions 

 of two charming green lanes in South Devon. 

 Our notes were lightly jotted down and thrown 

 together for two or three short magazine 

 papers. But we determined to expand our fern 

 papers so that they might reach the dimen- 

 sions of a small volume. With this object in 

 view we needed to obtain fresh materials, and in 

 order that these might be of the freshest kind, 

 other visits to the delightful lanes of Devonshire 

 would be necessary. We therefore decided that 



