ii2 ABOUT A FERN. [CHAP. 



bole of a smooth-stemmed giant beech, where all is 

 moss-grown and cool and twilight ; where moss and 

 lichen and seedling fern are the only vegetation, yet 

 all forming the most lovely microscopic fernery one 

 could wish to see. And such lovely little corners are 

 possible even to the pent-up dwellers in cities. An 

 unsightly shady corner in a narrow, wall-enclosed 

 back-yard may be easily turned into a thing of 

 beauty without expense. It is the fashion for writers 

 on fern- culture, in recommending these beautiful 

 ferns to people who have no means of adorning their 

 homes with the beautiful in Art, dogmatically to pre- 

 scribe certain materials as being necessary for their 

 cultivation. Among these materials will be found 

 loam, peat earth, leaf-mould, silver sand, &c. A little 

 thought should convince these well-meaning people 

 that such a rigid prescription must tend to defeat the 

 object in view. They wish to gladden and brighten 

 the homes of the poor by the introduction of the 

 most beautiful forms of Nature, but the poor in large 

 cities find it difficult to obtain these materials, and to 

 build up an outdoor fernery in the little back-yard 

 would require large quantities of each. So the 

 would-be fern-grower is repelled at once. But that 

 such substances however desirable they may be 

 are not an absolute necessity, we have proved through- 

 out eight or nine years of fern-culture in the Metro- 

 polis. The chief requisites are protection from the 

 sun and wind, and plenty of percolating moisture. 



We will relate our experience of Fernery construc- 

 tion. At the southern end of our little plot of 

 ground rose a brick wall some fifteen .feet in height. 



