FERNS, FENCES, AND WHITE BIRCHES 189 



seen other fences here where bushes, wire, and vines 

 all take part, but they cannot compete with an old wall. 



With ferns, a topic opens as long and broad and deep 

 as the glen below us, and of almost as uncertain climb- 

 ing, for it is not so much what ferns may be dug up and, 

 as individual plants, continue to grow in new surround- 

 ings, but how much of their haunt may be transplanted 

 with them, that the fern may keep its characteristics. 

 Many people do not think of this, nor would they care 

 if reminded. Water lilies, floating among their pads 

 in the still margin of a stream, with jewelled dragon- 

 flies darting over, soft clouds above and the odour of 

 wild grapes or swamp azalea wafting from the banks, 

 are no more to them than half a dozen such lilies grown 

 in a sunken tub or whitewashed basin in a backyard ; 

 rather are they less desirable because less easily con- 

 trolled and encompassed. Such people, and they are 

 not a few, belong to the tribe of Peter Bell, who saw noth- 

 ing more in the primrose by the river's brim than that it 

 was a primrose, and consequently yellow. Doubtless 

 it would have looked precisely the same to him, or even 

 more yellow, if it had bloomed in a tin can ! 



We do not treat our native ferns with sufficient respect. 

 Homage is paid in literature to the palm, and it is an, 

 emblem of honour, but our New England ferns, many 



