EDITORIAL. 



The printing company that manufactures this 

 magazine has been bothered with a succession of 

 fires that have recently been shown to be of incendiary 

 origin. While the January issue of the Fern Bulletin 

 was in press, a fire delayed it nearly a month, and 

 later an edition of The American Botanist ready to 

 be mailed was entirely destroyed and had to be re- 

 printed. Still later, just as this number of Fern Bul- 

 letin was ready for printing the ninth and final fire 

 put the presses and machinery completely out of busi- 

 ness and tied up everything until the machinery could 

 be rebuilt or new machines purchased and installed. 

 The company is now in a fire proof building and we 



hope will be able soon to catch up with our dates. 



* * * 



It begins to look as if we had spoken too soon re- 

 garding the end of this journal. There has been so 

 many objections to its demise registered that it is 

 quite likely that it will take a new grip on the situa- 

 tion at the end of twenty years and start in for a run 

 of another twenty. One circumstance, however, is 

 unchanged : the editor is going to quit at the end of 

 1012 no matter what happens. We think we know 

 where to get a first class successor and if the arrange- 

 ment we now have in mind is made, our readers may 

 hope yet to see a better magazine than has thus far 

 been issued. Meanwhile, we hope our readers will 

 continue to favor us with articles and subscriptions. 



* * * 



In the good old days before the Fern Society de- 

 cided to own its official organ, certain members se- 

 verely criticised us because our magazine did not ap- 

 pear on time. Now that these same critics have be- 

 gun to practice amateur journalism with funds bor- 



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