March;?, 18c5. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOKTICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



195 



I'ouo-hly soaked about every eighteen days, and these meads 

 have for many years been- let at an annual rent of from ^620 

 to .£30 an acre. At Croydon about 4000 to 5000 tons of 

 sewage per acre ai'e used every year, and this produces 

 about 32 tons of grass, worth on the ground ^£1 per ton. 

 LordJEssex, Mr. Mechi, and the Rugby Commissioners have 



aU given up using sewage in small quantities for grass. If 

 you can arrange so that your house sewage can be directed 

 on to your land by its own gravity, well and good, or by the 

 use of a common lifting iron or wooden pump ; but it would 

 be a profitless effort to use a cart. 



WINTEEING- PLANTS WITHOUT AETIFICIAL HEAT. 



In No. 196, "Isle of Wight" made a suggestion with 

 which I was much pleased, and at the time I resolved to give 

 you a sketch of a pit which might be rendered useful all 



the year round ; press of business has not permitted me to 

 do this sooner, but better late than never. 



I propose to sink the pit — say 5 feet (this, however, must 



Pit for wintering plants. 



depend on the nature of the ground), and build a nine-inch 

 wall above ground — say 6 feet high, against which the dung 

 for hotbeds could be stored. This would keep the pit warm 

 above ground, and to prevent water filtering into the pit, a 



bed of concrete should be formed under the dung. The form 

 of the roof will give plenty of light without the glass catch- 

 ing the wind. — Geo. K. Geyelin, C.E., London. 



HAEDY FEENS: 



HOW I COLLECTED AND CULTIVATED THEM.— No. 11. 





In my last number I brought my Fern collection to an 

 end ; but I feel as if I had yet a last word to say — a small, 

 very small sum to cast up of the amount of work, or rather 

 play, that I have done in the Fern papers, in which I have 

 so pleasantly wandered back through famiUar scenes and 

 amongst familiar fidends. 



I have mentioned aU the species of English Ferns, with 

 the exception of the Triohomanes radicans, which, being an 

 Irish Fern, hardly forms an exception. I have never found 

 radicans, have never grown it, and have never but once seen 

 a really thriving plant of it. I have now in cultivation all 

 the species of English Ferns, excepting the two Woodsias,* 

 the Asplenium germanicum, and the Hymenophyllums. 

 They consist of 



Adiantum capiUus-Veneris, with the Dunraven variety, 

 if variety it be. 



Allosorus crispus. 



Aspleniums triohomanes, viride, fontanum, ruta-muraria, 

 lanceolatum ; Adiantum nigrum, with varieties ; septentrio- 

 nale, marinum, with Cornish variety. 



Athyrium PiHx-foemina, with varieties. 



Blechnum spicant, with varieties. 



Botrychium lunaria. 



Ceterach officinarum. 



Cystopteris fragilis, with varieties. 



Cystopteris montana. 



• I may also now add the 'Wooasia ilyensis to my list of Ferns under cal- 

 tlTation, a plant of this rare and delicate Fern having been kindly presented 

 to me by ]Ui. Mitchell, of the Glen Nursery, Bacnp, Lancashire. 



L 



Cystopteris elfina. 



Lastreas Filix-mas, with varieties ; cristata, thelypteris, 

 oreopteris, rigida, dilitata (with varieties), reoui'va. 



Ophioglossum vulgatum. 



Osmunda regalis. 



Polystichums aculeatum, with varieties, angulare (with 

 variety), lonchitis. 



Polypodiums vulgare, with varieties, dryopteris, phego- 

 pteris, calcareum, cambricum. 



Scolopendrium, with varieties. 



So the sum I have to add up of what I have written about 

 seems very small, although it has taken ten years to collect 

 together the parts of which it is composed. But what 

 amount of figures would teU of all the happiness that it has 

 been to myself and others ? — the happy days, the merry 

 hom-s — hours of pain forgotten and of sorrow soothed — 

 hours in which, when alone, the soul, winging itself from 

 the material things around, has flown up on bright thoughts 

 to the blessed world whence it came. Who could number 

 up these thoughts, or count the circle of blessings that has 

 widened out from them ? 



A friend of mine, once walking in Yorkshire during a 

 severe drought, met a labouring man, and in passing said, 

 "What a blessing a shower would be, my friend." " Ah !" 

 said the man in reply, " it would let loose a many prisoners." 

 — The imprisoned seed, parched and thirsty, waiting, bound 

 in the fetters of its husk — the miUion buds on every tree, 

 all waiting for the genial shower to loose their prison-bonds 

 and set them tree. What beautiful thoughts the good God 



