FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT 
we are sure to do that if we keep our eyes 
open,” Mr. Percy replied, “It grows in most 
places about here that are moist and shady. Here 
it is now 1” 
I thought it less interesting than the fiddleheads 
—perhaps because it was not covered with a warm 
wool. Its stalks were deep wine colour, and the 
uncoiling fronds were light, yellowish green. They 
grew up from the root-stock in tufts that were large 
and circular. I could imagine better how they 
would look when unfolded than I could the fiddle- 
heads. 
“You will both think this is an old acquaintance 
when you see it uncoiled in your garden,” Mr. 
Percy told us. “In fact, you must have seen the 
lady-fern again and again before now. Sometimes 
it wanders out from the woodlands, or swamps to 
live along the roadways. I have even found it in 
our stony back-pasture. This year, however, you 
will really become its friend.” 
All the time that Mr. Percy was talking, he was 
working steadily to get its large root-stock up from 
the ground. I began to think that ferns had a 
much stronger way of fastening themselves in the 
earth than was known to either wild or cultivated 
flowers. When he had taken up several lady-ferns, 
we turned in the direction of home, Mr. Percy say- 
ing that later he would take us where fronds un- 
coiled beside some lovely wake-robins. Once only 
we stopped on the way to watch a red-headed wood- 
