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densely crowded, small patches can be pricked out an inch 

 apart, and inserted into other pans similarly prepared and 

 sterilized by boiling water as above. If not crowded, the 

 next stage, in a week or two later, will be the appear- 

 ance of little fronds, and after this growth continues fairly 

 rapidly until removal is obviously necessary, and complete 

 success maybe recorded. Unless the cultivator has been 

 very careful to avoid the admixture of the spores with 

 those of other perhaps undesirable species when sowing 

 was effected as above described, it is fairly certain that 

 a considerable number of these will assert themselves 

 in the offspring, and by this time they will be fairly 

 recognizable, and should be extracted and treated according 

 to their merit, i.e. either treated as weeds and ruthlessly 

 destroyed, or, it may be, as acquisitions worthy of excep- 

 tional treatment, and treated as such with special care. 

 In sowings of fine forms of varietal Ferns, it is at this 

 stage that the youngsters afford the most interesting study, 

 as exceptional value is often quite evident to the expert in 

 the young fronds when but a few inches high. Under 

 ordinary conditions ripe Fern spores may be found in 

 June or July, and then is the best time to gather and sow 

 them. As a frond may yield millions of spores, each little 

 patch of capsules containing scores of pods containing 

 spores, our plan is to sever a pinnule or smaller portion of 

 a frond and place it on a piece of white paper, when in an 

 hour or two a quite sufficient number for a sowing will be 

 shed, while a too generous admixture of undesirables will 

 be avoided. To scrape or shake a whole frond over the 

 pan, as is usually done, is to start a crop of many thousands 

 of all sorts at the expense of the elite, and probably frustrate 

 all previous precautions taken to obtain a pure culture. 



Chas. T. Druery, V.M.H., F.L.S. 



