40 
THE FERN PARADISE. 
And if a journey anywhere to green fields and 
green trees be delightful, how much more in- 
tensely enjoyable it must be to speed away to 
the ferny lanes of Devonshire ! How many of 
those, we wonder, who have never visited that 
exquisitely beautiful county, can have the smallest 
idea of the inexpressible loveliness of its green 
and ferny lanes ? 
Can we induce those who have never explored 
the “garden of England” to do so without delay? 
We will at least try. We have in a previous 
chapter explained that recently during a summer 
visit we roughly noted down our impressions 
of two charming green lanes in South Devon. 
Our notes were lightly jotted down and thrown 
together for two or three short magazine 
papers. But we determined to expand our fern 
papers so that they might reach the dimen- 
sions of a small volume. With this object in 
view we needed to obtain fresh materials, and in 
order that these might be of the freshest kind, 
other visits to the delightful lanes of Devonshire 
would be necessary. We therefore decided that 
