PREFACE TO THE ILLUSTRATED (FOURTH) EDITION. 
— 6 A Fern Paradise at Home ’ and c Tlie Hygienic 
Influence of Plants in Rooms’ (with the excep- 
tion of the Introduction to Part II.) — have been 
written for the present edition. Alterations so 
extensive have necessarily required an increase 
in the size of the volume and the re-setting of the 
type throughout. 
But the especial feature of this new edition is 
its illustrations. And here the Author has to 
make acknowledgment to a host of kind friends 
for the suggestion that the utility of his ‘ Plea * 
for Fern culture would be greatly enhanced and 
strengthened by pictorial embellishment. 
An illustrated title-page appeared to the 
Author to be indispensable to the present edi- 
tion : and if the Reader will indulgently imagine 
— in looking upon this first and introductory page 
— that he is looking through an opening in a 
ferny embankment at a perspective of clustering 
Ferns in graceful association with shady rocks 
and woodland knolls ; and if the Reader will, at 
