

-idiots. 
KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 303 
Scr nrnn' n ce at tttdtIIIEEEISSSSSSSS See 
Central America, kidnapped or bought to be 
exhibited in London or elsewhere, to gratify 
the cupidity of an adventurer: the same 
furm of head having been known to exist 
over extensive districts in South America 
for ages, and being the production of mere 
mechanical pressure. If imbecility of mind 
as well as dwarfishness co-exists in these 
children, the peculiarity of the head may 
result from mere malformation. The ex- 
perience of ages tells us, that mere pressure 
and consequent distortion of the cranium 
does not produce such a result.”’ 
We must confess,—so far as WE are able 
to offer an opinion, that these children are 
Having seen them several times, our 
judgment is neither rashly nor hastily 
formed. 
A FEW WORDS ABOUT FERNS. 
THERE YET REMAINS a forlorn hope for 
the true lovers of Plants, to enjoy the plea- 
sures of the society of their favorites—even 
although the luckless wight may not possess 
an inch of garden-ground or a square of 
glass. Nature, so truly consistent in all her 
arrangements, has suited the needle leaves 
of the mountain pme to the intense light 
and other extremes of wind and weather that 
they have to bear. Flowering plants gene- 
rally require a great deal of light and air, 
and for these reasons their culture cannot be 
carried on successfully in the dusky air of 
cities, where ventilation is necessarily im- 
perfect ; not to speak of the darkness of 
small yards enclosed by high walls, whose 
shadows seldom have room for half their 
length without encroaching upon their 
neighbors. 
Many millions of people have scarce room 
enough to grow more than a few pots of 
geraniums. Whatofthat? Let me convey 
to them the welcome intelligence that nature 
has yet in store an evergeen plant, of great 
beauty, systematically adapted to their wants, 
as I shall proceed to prove. 
In ordinary window-gardening, the plants 
get all the light they can by being placed in 
the window ; and when placed in any other 
part of the room, they are very soon past all 
hope of life. A few, such as Ficus elastica, 
Draceena ferrea rosea, and the like, will bear 
an immense deal of this kind of ill-usage 
before they give up; but still their doom is 
certain death, although protracted. Such 
being the case, it would confer a great boon 
upon window-gardening if we could get a 
stock of plants “ loving darkness rather than 
the light.” 
To seek for such, in shady places, has 
been my business often; and the finest 
specimens I ever found were located in caves 
and dens; with a covering of briars and 




thorns between them and the sun, so thick 
that I have frequently been unable to get 
the plants out uninjured from the mass of 
rubbish that vedled them from the sun. Such 
is the Scolopendrium vulgare, the commonest 
of our British ferns, with an entire leaf a 
foot long and three inches broad, of a fine 
pea-green color; its fronds remaining un- 
injured all the winter. I have taken it up 
by hundreds, and transplanted it into rock- 
work in the open air. I have cultivated it 
in a cupboard in-doors, with a borrowed 
light from an adjoining room, and it has 
luxurlated under such treatment. 
But what is of far more importance, it has 
stood a six weeks’ siege of a London house 
in the centre of a room, far away from the 
window, and, without any Wardian case or 
other costly apparatus, remained highly 
ornamental to the last.; whilst relays of 
flowering plants had come and gone and were 
dead and forgotten the while. A tray let 
into a table, so that the fronds of the fern 
may hide the table-top, is all that is needed ; 
no soil is used, but moist moss, occasionally 
changed, and the tray of plants occasionally 
watered overhead in the back-yard. 
In the transplanting of ferns, I find that 
what all gardeners have taught us to detest 
in transplanting other plants is the only safe 
course; for if we tread upon wet soil and 
puddle it, it spoils the compost for such as 
pine-apples and other pot plants, &c.; but 
for ferns, a thm stratum of rich mud, or 
puddle, is the only practicable plan of getting 
their light balls established on a stone or 
other prop that may be used to hold them 
up to the eye. 
This beautiful species of fern will grow in 
any room, hung on the wall like any other 
picture ; and wherever there is light enough 
to let the party read a book, or newspaper, 
in open day, there the Scolopendrium will do 
well for years—if allowed plenty of water, as 
before stated. In an unfinished well, I 
found this fern growing beautifully ; and as 
the well was of great depth, I had the 
curiosity to examine the exact depth where 
the fern began and ended. At six feet from 
the surface the soil was either too dry or the 
site too bleak, for the plants were wanting; 
but just at such a depth as the back of a 
twelve-foot living room the plants luxuriated; 
and at that point where “dark and damp- 
ness seemed to strive,’ the plants held on; 
and appeared to enjoy the calm of that lower 
world better than those who “ cumbered 
upper air.” 
I need not comment upon the culture of 
this plant. The slop-basin is sufficient 
accommodation for it; and the hole in the 
bottom, with all the other draining stuff, is 
quite useless. If hyacinths are worthy of 
glasses and water, surely a colored tumbler 

