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means. It is probable that the new plant partakes of the 
age of that from which it is severed, and never enjoys the 
freshness of youth. Tor a similar reason many have con- 
sidered, with regard to grafting fruit trees, that the grafted 
shoot participates in the age of the tree from whence it is 
taken, and hence account for the good old fashioned fruit 
of our forefathers becoming extinct. The only way of having 
what is young, strong, and healthy, is by sowing occasionally. 
5. Finally, as to transplanting, so much has been said in 
the course of the work that little more need be added. It 
must never be forgotten that the roots should not be broken. 
The natural situation, position, and soil, should be imitated. 
A lady wished to have some Maidenhair Spleenworts inter- 
spersed with her other Ferns. She placed earth in a saucer 
and planted them in it. They languished and died. She 
set the saucer in an erect position after inserting new ones ; 
they now were in their natural place, and began to thrive, 
and exhibit their pretty round leaflets with black shining 
stalks. The vertical position may also have served to drain 
off the stagnant water, and for this reason have caused the 
experiment to be so successful. Most Ferns love damp 
situations and watering, but there should be a free circulation 
and no stagnation. They also delight in shade. Even those 
which grow in the sun, are finer and more luxuriant in a 
less exposed situation and in a northern aspect. Smaller 
species prefer a shallow soil, and few are fond of rich, highly 
conditioned, valuable ground. It is not on the banks of the 
Axe, or in our well-farmed, well-watered meadows, that our 
finest plants luxuriate, but in the poor, hungry, loose soil 
close to the streamlets, which feed and supply our river as 
it wends its course onward, until it is lost among the waves 
of the English Channel. It may be further observed, 
that if the rich ground of the lowland country be altogether 
neglected and saturated with wet, it yields abundant crops 
of reed and sedge in dense, unapproachable masses. No 
Flowering Ferns or Shield Ferns there. The old writers 
used to say, that reed and fern have a deadly enmity one to 
the other. On the other hand, if there be woods in more 
elevated positions with loose soil, and in a damp situation 
with the water dripping down some gully, or dashing and 
foaming over some crag or rock so hastily and so grandly ; 
