2 INTRODUCTION. 
much success ; and the effort, more or less successful as a 
work of taste and art, can hardly fail to gratify those 
at least who undertake it. Or it may be that the cultiva- 
tion of ferns in pots is preferred, and very elegant and in- 
teresting are they when so treated ; this being, moreover 
the condition under which very many fern admirers find 
fern culture most convenient to their circumstances. Those 
who in pursuing this fancy may be led to adopt the more 
refined Wardian Case, will find no more beautiful or in- 
teresting parlour ornament, than one of those cases piled 
internally with miniature rocks, studded with living ferns. 
The cultivation of ferns is a growing fancy, and one 
which may well be fostered and encouraged. For who- 
ever admires ferns must be a lover of nature. Their 
simple ungaudy elegance superlative though it be has 
nothing in it to attract those whose eyes can feast only 
on the pageantry of floriculture. Flowers may be admired 
and esteemed for some quality altogether independent of 
their natural beauty ; but nature and ferns are, as it were, 
inseparable; and there is no race of plants, the culture 
and study of which is better adapted than they to 
"Lead through Xattire up to Nature's Gotl " 
