Popular Ways of Growing Ferns. 
63 
Ferns should be planted a little below the surface 
of the wire, so as to allow sufficient room for the 
water to permeate the whole ball. If baskets are 
planted too high, the difficulties in keeping the 
Ferns in good order are greatly increased, and 
nothing short of frequently-repeated soakings will 
answer; whereas, if filled only below the level of 
the rim, ordinary waterings, with occasional dip- 
pings, will be found quite sufficient to keep the 
plants in good condition. Baskets manufactured of 
cork bark may also be made very ornamental and 
rustic, and should be treated in the way stated above, 
with this difference — that they do not require any 
lining. The effect of suspended baskets is greatly 
enhanced by the introduction of a few foliage plants 
of creeping habit, such as Ficns repens, Saxifraqa 
sarmentosa, green and variegated forms of Trades- 
cantia, &c. These, if planted near the edge, soon 
take possession of the outer surface, covering it more 
efficiently than the Ferns themselves could do, while 
the same treatment is applicable to them. 
Another very effective way of growing Ferns 
is one adopted with marked success by Messrs. 
W. and J. Birkenhead, Sale, near Manchester. 
According* to their Hints on the Cultivation of 
Ferns, ^' it consists in fastening to a piece of cork 
bark a laver of living moss larger than the cork 
itself, and roots upwards; on this the Fern is 
placed, and its own roots are surrounded with 
suitable compost, in quantity according to size 
of plant and cork. Over this compost and 
the roots of the Fern the edges of the moss 
are drawn so as to cover up all the soil ; then 
the moss and Fern are fastened on to the cork 
bv means of thin copper wire, worked across in 
different directions, and twisted round copper tacks 
at the edges of the cork. The w^hole is then sus- 
pended by one hooked wire if to hang' against a 
wall, or by three or four wires and a hook if to hang 
like a basket from the roof of a CTeenhouse or of a 
conservatorv. The moss should be kept constantly 
moist, and the body of moss and soil soaked 
