FERNS AND FERNERIES 



'And Every Leaf an Autograph of God." 



OHN BURROUGHS has said: "One se- 

 cret of success in observing Nature is capacity 

 to take a hint; a hair may show where a lion 

 is hid. How insignificant appear most of the 

 facts which one sees in his walks, in the life 

 of the birds, the flowers, the animals, or in the phases of the 

 landscape, or the look of the sky — insignificant until they 

 are put through some mental or emotional process and their 

 true value appears. The diamond looks like a pebble until 

 it is cut. One goes to Nature for hints and half-truths. 

 Her facts are crude until you have absorbed or translated 

 them. Then the ideal steals in and lends a charm in spite 

 of one. It is not so much what we see as what the thing 

 seen suggests. We all see about the same; to one it means 

 much, to another little." 



Before planting your out-of-door retreat for ferns, if you 

 may not go into the hills and study your plan from Nature, 

 at least put yourself in the right mental attitude by reading 

 some of the beautiful stories of wild woods life such as are 

 written by Burroughs, or Mabie, or Van Dyke, and I am 

 sure your results will be far more satisfactory. 



Now, as to how, and where, and what to plant. When 



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