viii.] KILLARNEY FERN, DOMESTICATED 93 



they are back the better. Sudden changes into such 

 dry, draughty, uncanny positions as they are likely to 

 be exposed to are most trying, and very risky, even for 

 strong, hardy plants ; and I have no doubt that a couple 

 of weeks sojourn in a corridor or a drawing-room is 

 resented by all classes of the inhabitants of ferneries 

 in very much the same way as we should resent the 

 experiment of banishment to the uncongenial regions of 

 Siberia. 



CHAPTER VIII 



CLIMBERS 



OF late years a great change has come about in the treat- 

 ment of hardy climbing plants. They used to be stiffly 

 trained against walls, which tended to cramp their habit, 

 and hindered them being seen to advantage, or being made 

 a pleasant feature in the landscape, and all the time 

 the great bare trunks of old trees were left to stand out in 

 their native deformity without any attempt to clothe them 

 with a wealth of beauty and verdure, growing hard by, 

 yet lost for the want of their natural support. There are 

 scores of graceful trailing plants, like the Golden or Silver 

 Ivy or Cotoneaster, that are just fitted to garland some 

 awkward tree stumps, and there are few things more 

 beautiful than a trailing Clematis or Rambler Rose, sus- 

 pended from the branches of some huge tree. 



