6 The Fern Garden. 



kinds are expected to be found, a large basket, or better, 

 a pair of baskets of moderate size, such as can be car- 

 ried one in each hand, will be necessary. They should 

 have close fitting lids, because if ferns are taken up on 

 a hot day and exposed for some hours to the atmo- 

 sphere, the crowns and roots will be so much exhausted 

 that some may die, and all will be injured, whereas by 

 packing them close with a little moist moss amongst 

 them, the roots and crowns will be kept tolerably fresh 

 until they can be potted or planted out. A short- 

 handled three-pronged fork and a trowel, and a strong 

 clasp knife, will be needful ; and in some instances it 

 will be necessary to borrow a spade or digging fork near 

 the spot where operations are to take place, for fine old 

 roots of royal osmund and other large-growing ferns 

 will defy the leverage of all small hand tools. When 

 ferns of large size are taken up in the height of summer, 

 it is best to cut away all or nearly all their fronds at 

 once, and use those fronds as packing material. 



On reaching home, the best treatment to subject them 

 to is to pot them all separately in the smallest pots 

 their roots can be got into, with cocoa-nut fibre alone 

 or the fibre of good peat or leaf-mould, and shut them 

 up in a frame, and keep only moderately moist until 

 they start into growth. As at this early stage of the 

 study I may suppose you do not know how to pot them 

 and restore their energies, I will endeavour to point out a 

 simpler mode of procedure. Find a very shady place 

 in the garden and there make a bed of leaf mould or 

 peat soil, or cocoa-nut fibre refuse, and plant the ferns 

 in it as close together as possible. Then cover them 



