86 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING 



every drop of moisture from the soil. People have such 

 odd notions about Ferns ; they do not discriminate. All 

 kinds are lumped together, and expected to look after them- 

 selves and do all right, if they are given a few stones or 

 a clinker or two to play with. I do not think under 

 trees the very best place for Ferns, for the trees get all 

 the moisture. When we know that one fair-sized Oak 

 tree will draw up as much as a hundred and twenty-three 

 tons of water in a season, we cannot wonder that there 

 is not much left to nourish the plants beneath ; and then 

 the rain, the kindly rain that drops from heaven upon the 

 earth beneath, how are the poor overshadowed Ferns to 

 get that ? Speaking generally, all Ferns like shade and 

 moisture, but different members of the Fern family show 

 as many individual tastes and likes and dislikes as we 

 should find in any school or nursery. Some are for the 

 cool depths of the woodland, some for the breezy heath 

 or open moor ; others sun themselves like chameleons on a 

 dry and stony wall, where they live on nothing but lime 

 and light ; and there are the lake-lovers, who, poet-like, 

 would sit with their feet in the brook, and gaze at the 

 blue of the sky ; and the mountain-climbers who hide under 

 the slates of Skiddaw ; and the roadside Ferns that grow 

 beneath, and sometimes upon, the bossy branches of Elms 

 and Oaks. These hardy hedge-haunters were for a long 

 time the only Ferns that would not grow for us ; at last 

 we discovered the reason why. They will not drink 

 anything but soft water, sooner would they die. 



All the other Ferns I have mentioned live as happily in 

 a suburban garden as they did in their native haunts, and 

 attain to an even greater size and luxuriance. They give 

 no trouble, most of them do not mind hard water, but this 

 is much better if sprayed or sprinkled than if hosed. 

 Sprinklers can be bought for a shilling or two at any 

 ironmonger's shop, and are most useful. Even the Holly 

 fern, and the Hay-scented, and the pretty Polystichurn- 



