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valuable assets will be crowned with success and new 

 developments. 



I am-confirmed in this opinion from my friendship with 

 head gardeners in this neighbourhood, and also from an 

 experience of mine in the summer of this year. Ciren- 

 cester possesses a very successful society of gardeners, 

 amateur and professional. They discuss all manner of 

 subjects. I spent a very pleasant evening with them, when 

 I spoke to them on British ferns. The old days of pre- 

 judice are gone. Now they see clearly that ferns are to be 

 grow r n not in the place of roses, carnations, etc., but in 

 addition to them. Now they know that the unsightly 

 damp corner can be made beautiful for ever by ferns. 



One has still to point out the incongruity of beautiful 

 and expensive rockeries stocked with fern rubbish obtained 

 from the nearest wood — or advertised as lovely from Devon 

 and Cornwall. These rockeries, built with so much care 

 and skill, deserve the very best plants in the fern world. 



The Committee was kind enough to listen to all I had to 

 say — yes, to say — for in my selfishness I had nothing to 

 show, my plants were then at their best and I did not have 

 the heart to remove any fronds. 



However, I enlisted some recruits, with the promise of 

 many more — one friend then and there began by ordering 

 " some of the best " to begin with. 



It is to the head gardener I look for the great " push." 

 His eye is trained and his hand is full of skill — one or two 

 such come to see me occasionally. Just for the present he 

 is lacking in technical knowledge. He does not yet know 

 the full history of plumosums, but when he sees them, 

 they are to his eye — trained in the beauty of colour and 

 form — beautiful indeed. Intuitively he fastens on the 

 best, he turns away from freaks and monstrosities to admire, 





