WILD FERNS 233 



we come back with glad thankfulness to our warm 

 dry hills with then- red Fern-carpet and their well- 

 clothed Firs ; to the silver-barked Birches swaying, and 

 their crimson spray swishing, in the cheerful breeze 

 and the clear bright light of the blessed sun. 



When I was a child, this neighbourhood, now rather 

 thickly populated, was very little known. Ferns were 

 plentiful in the cool lane-ba,nks, many of them deep, 

 and dark with the shade of old Hazels and Oaks nearly 

 meeting overhead. Now, alas, with the mcrease of 

 population many of our sandy lanes have become hard 

 roads, and the Ferns have been torn from the hedges ; 

 and though we know of some of the more secluded 

 ways where they may still be seen, yet there are no 

 longer the copious fringes of Polypody, and the neat 

 tufts of black Spleenwort, and the grand shuttlecocks 

 of Male Fern that were formerly so frequent, and that 

 added so much to the beauty of the old country bye- 

 ways. 



I think that many people who would be glad to 

 grow hardy Ferns in quantity can scarcely know how 

 pleasant and interesting it is to grow them from seed. 

 Fern seeds are very minute ; they are more properly 

 called spores. A frond of hardy Fern that looks quite 

 mature and that bears the dark broAvn seed-masses 

 on its back should be shaken over a sheet of paper, 

 when it will give off a fine dust of spores. An old 

 friend who was a keen gardener and successful raiser 

 of Ferns wrote out for me his method of s:rowuio' these 



