FERNS, FENCES, AND WHITE BIRCHES 193 



like the other two, out of its haunts, cannot be relied 

 upon after August. 



As a fern for deep soil, where walking room can be 

 allowed it, the common brake, or bracken (Pteris aqui- 

 lina) is unsurpassed. It will grow either in sandy 

 woods or moist, and should have a certain amount of 

 high shade, else its broad fronds, held high above the 

 ground umbrella- wise, will curl, grow coarse, and lose 

 the fernlike quality altogether. You can plant this 

 safely in the bit of old orchard that you are giving over 

 to wild asters, black-eyed Susan, and sundrops, but 

 mind you, be sure to take both Larry and Barney, 

 together with a long post-hole spade, when you go out 

 to dig brakes, they are not things of shallow super- 

 ficial roots, I can assure you. 



A few years ago Evan, Timothy Saunders, and I went 

 brake-hunting, I selecting the groups and the menkind 

 digging great solid turfs a foot or more in depth, in 

 order to be sure the things had native earth enough along 

 to mother them into comfortable growth. Proudly 

 we loaded the big box wagon, for we had taken so much 

 black peat (as the soil happened to be) that not a root 

 hung below and success was certain. 



When, on reaching home, in unloading, one turf fell 

 from the cart and crumbled into fragments, to my 



