CULTIVATION OF FERNS. 



[ERY many people try to grow ferns and after a little while they give it up in 

 despair. They say : " I cannot get ferns to thrive. At best they only 

 struggle along for a while and then die " : and the reason why this happens 

 is not far to seek. Ferns, as a rule, love shade and moisture ; and must 

 have these, or they will not thrive. Most kinds, too, hate wind : it breaks 

 their tender fronds, blackens their edges, sucks up the moisture from the 

 soil in which they grow and so checks the growth, if it does not kill the 

 plants. Their natural home is the depths of woods and forests, where sun 

 and wind cannot penetrate and where the atmosphere is always pure, cool, 

 and damp : yet people place them close to sunny windows, and then create 

 a draught by leaving the windows open. In many cases, too, the room is lighted with 

 gas, which dries and poisons the air within it. If the plants throve under such un- 

 natural conditions they would have a power of accommodating themselves to altered 

 circumstances to an extent far beyond any other living organism. There are a few 

 ferns which grow in dry exposed situations, but only a few, and these require to be 

 grown under similar conditions, as much damp injures them ; but still they want 

 pure air, as they are generally mountain or seaside plants. 



If you want to get a fern to grow, you must note the conditions under which it 

 naturally occurs ; and imitate those conditions as closely as you can. This does not 

 refer merely to such matters as soil, shade, and moisture, but to other things as well. 

 For instance, if the plant has an erect rhizome, with a crown of fronds, note how that 

 crown is situated, in reference to the surface of the soil. As a rule, it stands well 

 above it, and if, in planting the fern, you put it under ground. It will very likely rot ; 

 or the young fronds will be so exhausted and strained in the effort to force their way 



