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allowed to dry out in the least by exposure to dry air. In 

 dry weather, too, care must be taken to keep them 

 watered until obvious growth commences, showing that 

 root action has recommenced. With the evergreens all 

 dead matter should be removed, but absolutely green 

 foliage should be retained, as it undoubtedly still plays a 

 part in stimulating growth. Ferns with underground 

 stolons may be propagated by divisions, each piece 

 separated consisting of a section of the stolon or creeping 

 rootstock with its bunch of roots and a frond or two of 

 evergreen, or growing tips showing incipient fronds if 

 otherwise. In the case of the Polystichums, a number of 

 varieties, among them some of the finest, bear bulbils 

 or young plants on the old fronds, and these can be used 

 for propagative purposes by layering the bulbil-bearing 

 sections in good soil, pegging them down and keeping 

 close until rooted. By attending to these instructions 

 the number of plants can be materially increased, and, 

 what is more, experience has demonstrated that Ferns 

 develop far more strongly when confined to single crowns, 

 and display their beauty to greater advantage than when 

 allowed to form bunches of many crowns, so that a double 

 advantage is gained by these operations. It should be 

 understood that in giving this advice we have in view not 

 the common or normal forms of British Ferns, which the 

 costermonger hawks at a penny or twopence per root, but 

 the great number of far more beautiful varieties which 

 may now be obtained from such firms as Mays, Stansfields, 

 Perry and others at very moderate prices indeed. 



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



