Gbe jferns of tbe Wooo. 189 



own fernery. It is rather larger than the books re- 

 commend, larger than the millionaires build, who 

 import their ferns from Brazil and from Abyssinia. 

 For it is about a mile square, in its main departments, 

 with several annexes, of smaller dimensions, twenty 

 or thirty rods each way, perhaps ; and there is one 

 very interesting section, where my polypodies grow, 

 which is about twenty-five hundred feet in the air. 

 In this fernery I have constantly growing, in the 

 season, the most interesting varieties of New England 

 ferns. I take the greatest pleasure in studying them 

 from day to-day, as they uncurl in the spring, and 

 glow with their rich greens in midsummer, and turn 

 pale in decay in the autumn days. I feel an honest 

 pride in taking the few friends who really appreciate 

 them on the tour of this splendid fern garden. And 

 if it be argued that I have undertaken to carry on the 

 culture of ferns on too elaborate and expensive a scale 

 for a man on a limited income, — a dominie at that, — I 

 answer that I have so far got out of my enterprise 

 without its costing me any more than the shoe-leather 

 which I have worn out in looking my possessions 

 over, and in watching the growth of my pets. 



The first room to which I am fond of conducting 

 visitors is a delightful knoll, a score of rods from the 

 house, whose ledges are covered with a grove of noble 

 pines, and hedged about with the common shrubberies 

 and vines which love such rocky nooks. On the north- 

 erly exposure, just under the jutting rocks, is a group 

 of the dainty Cystopteris, a frail and delicate plant, 



