The Fern House. 33 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE FERN HOUSE. 



jlE are now becoming " expensive and hard to 

 please/' We want a fern house — oh dear ! 

 how our wants increase with increase of know- 

 ledge and advance of taste. Any man could live con- 

 tented on just double the amount of income he has 

 already, and the fern grower at any time could promise 

 to be satisfied if he could be sure of advancing from a 

 frame to a house, or from a house to another and a larger 

 house, and from such ferns as anybody could grow in 

 a modest cool fernery to tree ferns of gigantic growth, 

 and the gorgeous Leptopteris superba, which is perhaps 

 the loveliest fern in the world, and rather too dear as 

 yet, and needing too much care for the humble fern 

 grower ever to dream about it. 



By a fern house I mean some sort of cave or rockery 

 covered with glass and with or without heating apparatus. 

 The best example of a fernery of this sort I know of, 

 to which the public have access, may be seen at Messrs. 

 Veitch and Sons' nursery, Chelsea. It is truly a garden 

 with gravel walks amidst rocks and waterfalls, and on 

 every hand the ferns present themselves in sheets of 

 delicious verdure or in waving palm-like masses, or in 

 a glorious confusion of brake and lastrea intermingled 



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