FERNS AS A HOBBY 



find them in their prime when most of the flowers 

 have disappeared. 



To me the greatest charm the ferns possess is that 

 of their surroundings. No other plants know so 

 well how to choose their haunts. If you wish to 

 know the ferns you must follow them to Nature's 

 most sacred retreats. In remote, tangled swamps, 

 overhanging the swift, noiseless brook in the heart 

 of the forest, close to the rush of the foaming water- 

 fall, in the depths of some dark ravine, or perhaps 

 high up on mountain-ledges, where the air is purer 

 and the world wider and life more beautiful than we 

 had fancied, these wild, graceful things are most at 

 home. 



You will never learn to know the ferns if you 

 expect to make their acquaintance from a carriage, 

 along the highway, or in the interval between two 

 meals. For their sakes you must renounce indolent 

 habits. You must be willing to tramp tirelessly 

 through woods and across fields, to climb mountains 

 and to scramble down gorges. You must be con- 

 tent with what luncheon you can carry in your 

 pocket. And let me tell you this. When at last 

 you fling yourself upon some bed of springing moss, 

 and add to your sandwich cresses fresh and drip- 

 ping from the neighboring brook, you will eat your 

 simple meal with a relish that never attends the 

 most elaborate luncheon within four walls. And 

 when later you surrender yourself to the delicious 

 sense of fatigue and drowsy relaxation which steals 

 over you, mind and body, listening half-uncon- 



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