EDITORIAL. 



With this number of The Fern Bulletin, its exis- 

 tence as a separate publication practically comes to an 

 end. A comprehensive index to the past ten volumes 

 is already in the printers hands and will constitute the 

 fourth number of this volume and the last of its ex- 

 istence. This is probably the first case on record of a 

 magazine ceasing publication for lack of material to 

 fill it. Usually it is the lack of subscribers that causes 

 the demise of special publications but fortunately this 

 is not the case in the present instance. 



There is an evolution in magazine-making as in 

 everything else. Magazines devoted to special sub- 

 jects spring up, have their day and when their cycle 

 is completed must move onward or die to make way 

 for something else. When The Fern Bulletin was es- 

 tablished there was abundant reason for its existence 

 for there was not a single book devoted to the popular 

 side of fern study in America. Only a few advanced 

 botanists knew much about this interesting race of 

 plants, and the study was full of conjecture and as- 

 sumption in place of reliable facts. Many of what we 

 now consider fairly common species were unknown, 

 the ranges of all ferns were hazily defined and the in- 

 teresting features of their life histories were practi- 

 cally unknown. Today the situation is far different. 

 Any beginning student can find in the nearest library 

 half a dozen books that will quickly and surely guide 

 him to the name of his specimens and tell him all the 

 important facts of their existence. What has been 

 said of the ferns applies with still greater force to those 

 plants which for want of a better name are called the 

 fern allies. For a long time after popular fern study 



92 



