CULTIVATION 
33 
The soil should be as described above, and perhaps the 
best test of its suitability is that it can dry again quickly 
after rain, for it is easy to give more water, but most difficult 
to make a saturated plant dry. The tin or pot should be 
about the size of the root, but not much larger, or the soil 
will get sour before the plant can utilise it. The best sign 
of perfect health is an abundant crop of young growing roots 
pushing their way through among the broken bricks at the 
bottom, and this may also be taken as notice that the plant 
wants a larger tin. 
Be careful in watering to give only when required, which 
may be twice a day with one plant, and once in two weeks 
with another standing beside it. Knowing when they are dry 
comes only by practice ; but it is seldom that a fern lover, who 
does not know this, can keep his ferns long in good health. 
Watering must, however, be understood as quite a different 
thing from syringing, or otherwise damping the foliage, which 
may be done lightly all over two or three times a day with 
benefit. 
Planted out in a natural donga or artificial fernery most 
ferns do better even than when grown in pots, and with less 
trouble, but there is a fascination in doing what is difficult 
which leads many growers to prefer pots, while some kinds 
are so easy and graceful that they have for years displaced 
most other kinds for table decoration. 
The absence of flowers is no defect, but tends rather to 
add to the charm of ferns, for it allows them to be in season 
all the year round, and frequently a good fern, in good hands, 
will remain in decorative condition for years. 
Inside a room is seldom too close for them, but as they 
always grow towards the light, plants in rooms require to be 
turned round frequently in order to prevent lop-sidedness. 
Just how much closing up some kinds will stand has never 
been fully demonstrated, but cases are on record (see N. A. 
Gardening , April 1913, page 208) in which ferns have germi- 
nated inside sealed bottles and continued to grow for years 
therein without any additional moisture or fresh air being 
supplied. 
s. f. s. A. 
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