— TOI-- 



The ferns are the highest personifications of grace and 

 beauty. They represent the finest type of refinement and appeal 

 irrisistably to everything that is best within us, I am glad that 

 the "Fern Chapter" is doing so much to increase the love for 

 these beautiful creations of the Good Father, and trust that 

 every member will become a misisonary for its propagation. 



Med ford, Mass. 



A TEN YEAR'S RETROSPECT. 



By Willard N. Clute. 



Ten years is not a remarkably long period of time, measured 

 by ordinary standards, but the completion of ten years of unin- 

 terrupted publication by a botanical journal is an event of suf- 

 ficent rarity to make it noteworthy. There is a great mortality 

 among infant botanical publications. In nearly every case they 

 are afflicted with a malady called poor circulation, and very care- 

 ful nursing is required to bring them through their early years. 

 Thus it happens that the Fern Bulletin at the end of its tenth 

 volume, is the third oldest of the strictly botanical journals pub- 

 lished in America, horticultural journals, of course, being ex- 

 cluded. To signalize the event, a survey of fern study during 

 that time is here presented. 



In the beginning the Fern Bulletin was not intended for 

 general circulation. Established as a means of communication 

 between the widely scattered members of the Fern Chapter, us 

 pages were made small enough to allow copies to be enclosed with 

 letters and no thought was entertained of its developing into any- 

 thing larger. Soon, however, applications for the numbers began 

 to come in from people outside the Fern Chapter and then it was 

 that it took on the airs of a magazine of some importance and was 

 regularly issued. The facetiously inclined, taking an analogy from 

 the life of a fern, are wont to refer to those early numbers as the 

 prothallium stage of the magazine. The analogy, seems a good 

 one, however, for like the fern plant, it has continued to develop 

 by the addition of more and larger leaves until it covers the 

 whole field and now publishes yearly more matter pertaining to 



