FERN GROWING 145 



with avidity on bran steeped in vinegar, and this is a better 

 trap than lettuce or cabbage leaves. If small heaps of the 

 bran are deposited in a score or more parts of a Fern-house, 

 the slugs will prefer feeding at these heaps to destroying 

 the fronds, and two or three visits each evening will soon 

 clear the house of slugs ; it is far better to find food for 

 depredators, instead of waiting night after night for them to 

 be trapped. The author never could see the philosophy of 

 setting a single trap along a row of peas that mice were 

 destroying ; for, whilst one is being caught, the others will 

 be going on with their work of destruction. If, instead of 

 this, you were to scatter a little corn amongst the peas, the 

 mice would eat the former, whilst at the same time you 

 are gradually reducing the number and saving your crop. 

 In setting vinegar and bran traps in the outdoor Fernery, 

 the author has caught more than two thousand slugs in 

 a night with fifty of these little heaps : early in the night 

 these traps are visited by some dozen distinct small slugs, 

 whilst at a later hour large ones appear. Slugs that are so 

 rare in a certain locality as not to have been noticed have 

 been secured by this means. 



There are various vegetable as well as animal pests : the 

 most destructive is one very similar in its ravages to that 

 which causes the potato disease. It is a fungoid growth that 

 is known in Scotland, and in the last few years has appeared 

 in England. It was first seen in Mr. E. F. Fox's Fernery 

 at Bristol, six years ago, from which it has spread to the 



fly), and on looking at it an hour afterwards there was not one remaining. It 

 must not be omitted, in the enumeration of insects, to point to the disfigurement 

 of fronds by large and small caterpillars : one, if left undisturbed, will soon leave 

 nothing but the thick stems ; another will have its egg deposited in the unfolded 

 frond of the Lady Fern, the apex of which will afterwards be discovered rolled 

 up into a bundle in which the grub may be found ; a third is detected eating its 

 way up the Lady Fern stem ; whilst a fourth (very small) glues itself in its network 

 meshes on the under-side of the fronds. 



K 



