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the natural handicapping to which we have alluded, and 

 to provide the plants taken in hand with as nearly as. 

 possible ideal conditions of growth, and supplied with 

 all incentives to perfect development. To do this effect- 

 ively we have, however, in the first place to study Nature 

 to ascertain under which natural conditions the plants 

 are at their best, and, having acquired this knowledge, 

 to apply it as far as practicable to cultivation. Thus to 

 see our native Ferns at their best we must visit one of our 

 deep western valleys, where a rushing, tumbling stream 

 brawls between high, rocky banks hemmed in by trees, 

 the two latter sheltering admirably from boisterous breeze 

 and broiling sun. The very air is humid from the 

 proximity of the stream, and the leafy, rocky soil is 

 never dry. Here are all the essential conditions of Fern 

 life at their best, and we see the results all around us 

 in waving masses of feathery frondage, while a closer 

 inspection will show the ground beneath to be covered 

 with flourishing colonies of Blechnums, Oak Fern, Beech 

 Fern, Polypodium vulgare, and others of the smaller 

 Ferns. Leaving the glen and reaching an adjacent road 

 we may still find all these, but in a much smaller state,, 

 and in many cases stunted and torn by the w T ind, and 

 thus void of all the charm of their more favoured neigh- 

 bours. Presently, however, the road dips into a hollow 

 and becomes a shady cutting, walled in on either side 

 by rough, retaining stone dykes, while overhead the trees 

 almost meet, and thus once again we have a Fern 

 paradise, but with a difference. Nature, as we have said, 

 has varied her creations to such varied conditions. Here 

 we have more air and light, and the loose stone dykes 

 afford a combination of perfect drainage with constant 

 dampness, that better suits the tastes of other species of" 

 Ferns, which, moreover, under the freer conditions of: 

 growth in the dell we have left, would be over-growm 

 and enfeebled. 



