THE FERN BULLETIN 



29 



of a monopolist. If he had the time, he feels quite 

 sure that he could write thirty-two pages four times 

 a year, but any reader who has a mental picture of the 

 •editor in a palatial office with nothing to do but con- 

 coct fern literature has another guess coming. A long 

 time ago, when this magazine was started, the editor 

 might have entertained the hope that the magazine 

 would some day earn him a living and allow him to 

 give his whole time to advancing the study of ferns 

 but that was fifteen years ago. The hope he now en- 

 tertains is that the magazine will continue to bring in 

 enough revenues to pay the printer, while the editor 

 earns his daily bread as a teacher of biology in a great 

 city school. Business before pleasure is an old and well 

 tried motto, and when school affairs demand attention 

 this magazine, which is at best, a mere recreation of 

 the editor's, must wait. The only question with each 

 subscriber must be, is a magazine issued as irregularly 

 as this one and containing the matter it does, worth 

 seventy-five cents a year? Some there are that for 

 fifteen years have given a strong affirmative to this 

 question and have answered it for the future by paying 

 several years in advance. Others, whether they are 

 satisfied or not, continue to renew, as one recently ex- 

 pressed it, "because they have formed the habit." We 

 are sure such good habits should not be lightly broken. 

 We cannot, however, neglect this opportunity to ex- 

 press our appreciation of the indulgent attitude of our 

 readers in regard to the delay. Those who have 

 written about it at all, have mildly said that their two 

 numbers were missing and if issued must have been 

 lost in the mails. 



* * * 



For the year 1908 we have planned to continue our 

 series of illustrations and notes on rare forms of ferns, 



