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LXIV. Directions for raising Ferns from seed, as practised 

 by Mr. Henry Shepherd of Liverpool. By Sir James 

 Edward Smith, President of the Linnean Society, $c. 

 Honorary Member of the Horticultural Society. 



Read March 2, 1819. 



In my frequent visits to the Botanical Garden at Liverpool 

 in August and September last, I was struck with the great 

 variety and abundance of the Fern tribe, cultivated in the 

 stoves. My attention was also excited by a number of pots 

 covered with bell-glasses placed under the shade of the Palms 

 in the central hot-house, and all apparently filled with moss, 

 which I found to be seedlings of Ferns. 



I soon learned, that Mr. Henry Shepherd, a nephew 

 of the well known and very able Curator of that garden, had 

 paid much attention to the raising of these plants from seed, 

 and I requested him to give me an account of his method, 

 which I beg to lay before the Horticultural Society, in Mr. 

 Henry Shepherd's own words. 



" Directions for raising Ferns from seed." 

 " Having provided a common garden-pot, four and half 

 inches in depth and three and half wide, let the bottom part, 

 to the height of one inch, be filled with fragments of broken 

 pots, by way of drain. Over these should be spread a 

 stratum of such soil, as is commonly used, for potting green- 

 house plants, of the depth of two inches ; the remaining inch 



