March i, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



99 



moisture, can be grown to great advantage, and the needs of 

 the soil can be met with mineral fertilizers, which can be ap- 

 plied with comparative accuracy. The best market ground in 

 Florida is a mixture of peaty matter and pure sand, and there 

 the mineral manures are applied as experience dictates with 

 good results. We have much to do in the way of experiment 

 in the management of such lands, but there is no doubt that 

 when the shrewdness of the American farmer is once brought 

 to bear intelligently upon the problem, the peat-bogs can be 

 made as valuable for gardens here as they are in the low 

 countries, and with less trouble and delay. 



The same is true of the salt-marshes that abound along our 

 Atlantic border, which result from the gradual filling up of 

 small bays and arms of the sea by marine grasses, which af- 

 ford a lodging-place for sediments borne to the spot by the 

 action of the tide, or washed down from the shore. This pro- 

 cess, which goes on constantly, can be observed in any small 

 harbor where the Eel Grass flourishes and gradually closes up 

 the channel. These sea-marshes, when reclaimed, show a 

 fertility which is surprising from its apparent inexhaustibility. 

 The soil, unlike that of the peat-bogs which requires constant 

 application of chemicals to correct the excess of vegetable 

 matter existing in it, seems rich in material for the growth of 

 economic plants, and affords enormous crops, of grass and 

 grain, year after year, without other fertilization than the occa- 

 sional renewal of the surface by deep plowing. All garden 

 crops that do not demand especially dry soil grow on such 

 land with great freedom, and a fiower-garden on such soil is 

 a delight to the gardener, for it never needs watering. Irises 

 and Lilies of all kinds do especially well in the rich, damp 

 mold, and perennials grow most luxuriantly. 



It requires several years to conquer a salt-marsh, even after 

 it is drained of salt-water and provided with an exit for the 

 fresh, for the fibrous peat, made of the tangled remains of the 

 grasses of hundreds of years, is slow to decay, and the salt 

 still at times encrusts the surface and has to be destroyed by 

 plowing. Still, under favorable conditions, the ground after 

 three years can be brought into excellent condition. In the 

 beginning, root crops are the most desirable, and later, the soil 

 is fit for grasses, of which Red-top affords the best returns. In 

 Marshfield, Massachusetts, an area of about fifteen hundred 

 acres was diked off from the sea some years ago, and though 

 local dissensions have delayed the work, yet the results have 

 shown the value of the experiment — fields which once yielded 

 only a scanty crop of marsh grass now giving a generous har- 

 vest of hay and root crops. 



As a feature in landscape-gardening a bit of meadow-land 

 is most valuable. The drains can take the form of a winding 

 stream. Osier Willows can readily be made to grow even along 

 a salt-marsh, by affording them a bed of sand to spread their 

 roots in, and shrubs can be tastefully grouped in the curves of 

 the miniature river, while flowers that love moisture can be 

 effectively disposed in masses. The varying tints of the level 

 stretches of turf are full of beauty, and the smooth, flat ex- 

 panse has the charm which always attaches to an open, grassy 

 space well girt with trees. If the meadow be fresh, all sorts of 

 planting is possible to enhance and emphasize its characteristic 

 beauty, and even if it be salt, there are many things that can 

 be made to grow along its borders, and its own level will lead 

 the eye away and give a sense of openness and distance that 

 are of great importance in any landscape. 



Thus, both for use and beauty, marsh lands are to be prized 

 and made available for profit and delight. The peculiar 

 struggle involved in their reclamation has always a singular 

 attraction for him wlio undertakes the business, for no man 

 who joins l)attle with a meadow is content to come out second- 

 best, no matter what victory may cost him. Hence ensues a 

 prolonged encounter, in which the man ultimately finds profit 

 and gains valuable experience. That the experiment will pay, 

 the experience of Europe amply proves, for the best lands of 

 Great Britain, northern Germany and Holland, and much of 

 those of excellent quality in southern Europe, were, a thousand 

 years ago, in exactly the same state as the undrained territories 

 of this counti'y. 



A Rare Fern. 



'X'HIRTEEN miles from Bowling Green, Kentucky, I found, 

 -*■ September 10, 1892, a specimen of the rather rare Fern, 

 Bradley's Spleenwort (Asplenium Bradleyi). About a quarter 

 of a mile from Young's Ferry, Warren County, a hill extends 

 for a mile or more, crowned by perpendicular sandstone cliffs. 

 On the side of the bluff sloping from the river, shaded and pro- 

 tected from the winds by the overhanging cliffs, the Mound 

 Builders or Indians evidently made their homes. In some 



places the cliff is almost a perpendicular wall of sandstone, at 

 others the rock is worn and broken into picturesque ravines 

 and grottoes. Into one cleft an immense stone has fallen and 

 lodged between the walls, resembling in miniature the well- 

 known Flume of the White Mountains. In other clefts are 

 grotto-like places resembling parts of Mammoth Cave. Over 

 and above these caves, through shrubs and Ferns, could be 

 caught glimpses of the sky. 



The soil along the river at this point and in the adjoining 

 counties is rich in asphaltum. At the foot of the hill is a grove 

 of magnificent Beeches. The hill itself is covered with a 

 stunted growth of Sassafras and other trees and a tangle of 

 Blackberries. On the sand-stone cliff and ridge is a growth of 

 Laurel (Kalmia latifolia). Huckleberries (Vaccinium arboreum) 

 and V. vacillans) and Sourwood (Oxydendrun arboreum). On the 

 ridge I found the grass Erianthus alopecuroides and the still 

 rarer White Gentian (Gentiana ochroleuca). The view from 

 the top of the ridge is fine in the extreme, being a panorama 

 of the knobs and valleys for miles around, and overlooking 

 three counties. On the cliff above and below are masses of 

 Ferns drooping in the greatest profusion, the smaller ones 

 growing in mats in the moss on the rocks. The latter were 

 common Polypody (Polypodium vulgare), Walking-leaf Fern 

 (Camptosorus rhysophyllus), called by the country people Wall- 

 link, Maiden-hair Spleenroot (Asplenium trichomanes), and 

 with them Liverworts and Partridge- berry. 



The larger Ferns, some of them over three feet in height, 

 were Aspidium spinulosum, var. intermedium, A. marginale 

 and a few of the Cinnamon Flowering Fern (Osmunda cinna- 

 momea). But the gem of all in point of interest, if not of 

 beauty, was the one specimen of Asplenium Bradlevi. Here 

 in a crevice of the moist sandstone, shaded and protected 

 from the wind, grew this rare Fern, first found in 1872 in the 

 Cumberland Mountains, near Cold Creek, East Tennessee, by 

 Professor F.H. Bradley, and described by Professor Eaton soon 

 after. The mature fronds are seven and a half by one and a 

 half inches, linear oblong, pinnate, pinnse numerous, oblong 

 ovate, the largest pinnatifid, fruit-dots short, stipe black, tufted, 

 the lower half of rachis black also ; root-stock very short and 

 covered with black scales. 



Professor Williamson, in his Kentucky Ferns, says that 

 though he botanized throughout the entire state where A. 

 Bradleyi was likely to be, he failed to find it. Professor Hus- 

 sey, in his report, wrote that he found one specimen in Ed- 

 monson County, near Green River and Mammoth Cave, and, 

 though he searched a hundred similar localities, failed to 

 find another. The only other report of it I have heard is by 

 Mr. C. C. Hoskins, in 1876, from near Big Clifty, Grayson 

 County. A specimen is now in the herbarium of the Uni- 

 versity of Indiana, but where this was gathered I do not know. 

 Professor Eaton, in his Ferns of North America, mentions that 

 a single specimen of a less-developed form has been collected 

 near Newburgh, New York ; also, that Williamson found a 

 plant in Estill and Rockcastle Counties, Kentucky. This must 

 have been since the publication of his Kentucky Ferns. He 

 adds that it will probably prove to be less rare than is sup- 

 posed, and to have a wider range, since the Newburgh plant 

 is manifestly identical with the plant found in Kentucky. 

 However, this work was published in 1880, and few, if any, 

 specimens have been reported, at least to my knowledge, 

 since that time. I should very much like to know whether 

 there are other botanists who have found this Fern during 

 recent years, and if it is still considered a comparatively rare 

 species. 



Professor Hussey thus described the place where he found 

 it, in Edmonson County, Kentucky: " Under the overhanging 

 sandstone, sheltered from the sun and sweeping winds, are 

 sometimes spaces of vast extent, where the aborigines had 

 their homes, as evinced by the numerous fragments of Hint, 

 and by the morlar-holes in the detached masses of sand-rock. 

 On one of these sandstone cliffs I found the Asplenium Brad- 

 leyi, and, recognizing it as new, sent it to a botanical corre- 

 spondent, from whom I learned it had already been described 

 by Professor Eaton. . . . Under a moist overhanging rock, a 

 few hundred yards distant, was found the Trichomanes radi- 

 cans, shut out from direct sunlight, and where there was con- 

 stant dampness." 



This is a perfect description of this point near Green River, 

 where I found the plant of A. Bradleyi, and not three fee 

 away, under an overhanging rock, grew the rare Tricho- 

 manes radicans. Flint fragments were picked up and a large 

 mortar-stone stood near by, in front of the grotto. The rock 

 was about five feet in diameter, two feet high ; near one side 

 was a mortar-holc about five inches in diameter and about ten 

 inches deep. 



