THE FERN PARADISE. 



Those only who have explored the Devonshire 

 coast along the Bristol Channel on the north, and 

 along the English Channel on the sonth, and who 

 are also familiar with the interior of the county, 

 can properly realise the extreme magnificence of 

 its landscapes. But we believe that thousands of 

 the tourists who annually visit the western ' Gar- 

 den of England ' for Devonshire well deserves 

 that appellation whilst deeply impressed with the 

 general loveliness of the county, nevertheless find 

 it difficult to explain what it is that lends the pecu- 

 liar character of softness and grace to the scenery. 

 Here is the secret. The whole county is richly and 

 luxuriantly clothed with Ferns. The number and 

 variety of the most exquisite forms of these beauti- 

 ful plants to be found in Devonshire are equalled by 

 those of no other county in the United Kingdom. 

 Devonshire is emphatically the ( paradise ' of the 

 British Ferns. There they are in very truth at 

 home. The soil and the air are adapted to them, 

 and they adapt themselves to the whole aspect of 

 the place. They clothe its hill-sides and its hill- 

 tops ; they grow in the moist depths of its valleys ; 

 they fringe the banks of its streams ; they are to 



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