Cultivation of Rock Ferns. 19 



CHAPTER IV. 



CULTIVATION OF ROCK FERNS. 



OU have taken notice when fern collecting that 

 many of the smaller kinds are only found on 

 rocks and old walls, or, at all events, are never 

 found in damp hollows or in places over much sheltered 

 from the sun and the breeze. Now, all such ferns 

 require peculiar treatment, and as you advance in 

 practice the rock and wall-loving varieties will probably 

 interest you more than all the rest. 



The first requisite to success is to plant them where 

 it is impossible for water to become stagnant about 

 their roots. In planting them on a rockery it is a good 

 plan to take out a quantity of the soil from the place 

 where the fern is to be, and introduce soil specially pre- 

 pared for it. 



In preparing the stations put a lot of broken bricks 

 or broken flower-pots and small stones into the holes, 

 and upon these let there be full nine inches depth of 

 the compost, and let it be raised into a hillock. 



Nearly all the ferns of this class will thrive in a 

 mixture of equal parts of yellow loam of a silky nature, 

 fibrous peat or the top crust of sandy soil from a com- 

 mon where the ling and the brake grow together. There 

 must be full one fourth of sand in the mixture, but the 



