CHARACTERS, DISTRIBUTION, ETC., OF FERNS. 
117 
Fresh and varied scenery is, consequently, another of the objects to be realised by 
skilfully thinning out plantations. In proportion to the length of the space over which 
the eye can roam, and the number and diversity of the interesting things to be met with 
in that space, will be the novelty, mixture, and loveliness of the many changes which the 
season and the atmosphere occasion. Even in one day, sometimes, from the variableness 
of our climate, and the partial character or localisation of many atmospheric phenomena, a 
widely spread landscape will exhibit the strangest and yet the most exquisite contrasts and 
combinations. So that it is not only the actual variety in the features of a scene which is 
brought under inspection by removing parts of the woody screen that had previously 
covered it, but that far greater and more wonderful variation which every day’s and often 
every hour’s change of weather introduces. 
If, moreover, we adopt the authority of one of the first writers on landscape gardening, 
we should, by opening out the plantations of an estate, produce, in many instances, a 
feature which he regards as essential to the perfection of any scene, and which is called 
“ the distance.” This characteristic, of whatever composed, cannot, of course, be appreciable 
from the house, while it is obscured by large plantations occupying the foreground or 
middle distance ; and it can only be rendered available, as part of the landscape, by the 
plan here recommended. 
Plantations are sometimes, and not unfrequently, found to exist at greater or less 
distances from the house, clothing the slopes and crowning the summits of low ranges of 
hills. These are often exceedingly effective, but are always found to be improved by 
having old quarries or chalk-pits occasionally peering out from them, and breaking their 
monotony. Where the chief view of these woods is obtained from the front, so that the 
entire face is distinctly seen, and they are not looked at obliquely, much may be done to 
vary and brighten them by clearing out irregular patches here and there, and sowing them 
down with grass ; and if these breaks are made much larger in some places, and suffered 
to creep over the crown of the hill, they will be rendered all the more effective. 
Where the front outline of such plantations is not carried quite down to the bottom of 
the valley, but is fringed with meadows or arable land, it will greatly improve it to throw 
in the fences, as before suggested, leaving scattered trees and groups along the margin, and 
making this as bold as possible. 
After all, it may, possibly, be said that, to prescribe rules, and attempt to give practical 
directions on a matter of this sort, irrespective of any particular and local reference, is 
scarcely short of empiricism. Still, it is presumed that the characteristics described 
are of such common occurrence, and the mode of treatment proposed so generally 
applicable, that the hints thus afforded will at least serve as a foundation for carrying out 
the practice. Doubtless, there is much in every place which requires to be considered in 
itself ; but the office of the improver mainly consists in adapting acknowledged rules to a 
particular locality. 
CHARACTERS, DISTRIBUTION, PROPERTIES, USES AND CULTIVATION 
OF FERNS. 
The plants called Ferns, although flowerless, are exceedingly interesting ; they all form 
leafy plants, and produce a rhizome, or root-stock, which either creeps below the ground, 
spreads over the surface, or rises into the air like the stem of a Palm. The leaves are 
usually divided into numerous pieces, marked with forking veins, and are coiled up (or 
circinate) when they first unfold. The reproductive organs consist of spore cases, which 
are placed either upon the backs of the leaves, or on their margins, or else are wrapped up 
in contracted and deformed leaves. 
In tropical countries, some of the arboreous kinds are said to attain to the height of 
forty feet, and many grow to the height of large shrubs ; others become spreading 
herbaceous plants, and some even assume the character of climbers. Of such as possess 
more than an ordinary interest, may be noticed that singular species known by the name 
