MY INDOOR FERNERY. 



By C. E. Waters. 



One of the pleasures connected with ferns is that we may 

 study them in our own homes if we take the trouble to construct 

 a suitable dwelling for them. My own fernery is a rather rough 

 affair, twenty-two by seventeen inches, and a foot high, with one 

 side hinged at the top so that it may be opened readily. The base 

 is made of five-eighths inch boards strongly fastened together by 

 cross-pieces with the nails clinched. Upon this are nailed four 

 strips of half-inch pine, forming a box two and a quarter inches 

 deep that just fits inside of the glass cover. The inside of this 

 was varnished, to protect the wood, and then a little mound of 

 limestone and granite was made, and the whole was filled in with 

 the richest earth obtainable in the woods. 



When first made the case stood on edge, so to speak, being 

 seventeen inches tall, but in winter the cheerless space between 

 them and the top seemed to discourage the ferns. The present ar- 

 rangement not only gives more space for planting, but there is 

 less empty space above the ferns. It stands near an eastern 

 window, and even on a winter morning, after an all night ex- 

 posure to the cold air coming in, the inside of the fernery keeps 

 warm with only an old woollen cover thrown over it. In sum- 

 mer a piece of thin paper is pasted over the front to keep off the 

 direct rays of the sun, and the side is kept open an inch or two. 

 Every week or two a quart or more of water is poured in, taking 

 care to put plenty in the corners which are more apt to dry out 

 than the center 



This sounds very rough and crude, but some ferns find it a 

 congenial home. At present sixteen or seventeen species are 

 growing more or less luxuriantly, and it is interesting to note 

 their different behavior. The limits of this article forbid going 

 into details, but the ferns that thrive best may be mentioned. 

 Above all, Asplenium Bradleyi, Nephrodium marginalc, N. cris- 

 tatum and Polystichum acrostichoides are doing well, and a 

 plant of P. aurcum is almost a nuisance, for its broad fronds shade 

 the ferns behind it. Pellaca atropurpurca, Cheilanthes vestitj 

 and Asplenium ebeneum do well, as does also Cystopteris bulbifera 



