22 
The Fern Garden . 
six inches of a mixture consisting of sandy peat, sphag- 
num, and broken sandstone or common hearthstone. 
Plant in the centre of the station, and place a bell- glass 
over ; keep constantly moist, and give air periodically. 
When it is well established, remove the glass, and leave 
it to take care of itself. If the fernery is supplied with 
a stream of water, Cystopteris montana is one of those 
which should be planted on a ledge of rock where it 
can have the benefit of a daily trickling of water over 
its rhizomes. 
Lastrea montana — the hay-scented fern, better known, 
perhaps, as L . oreopteris — requires similar treatment to 
that recommended for Cystopteris montana, but should 
have a soil more inclining to loam. It can scarcely 
have too much water, provided the position in which it 
is planted admits of it readily flowing away. 
Polypodium vulgar e, the common polypody, will grow 
in almost any position except in a sheer marsh, and 
there it soon perishes. When growing wild in the 
woods, whether on pollard trees or moist banks, it is 
invariably found rioting in deposits of leaf-mould and 
wood rotted to powder. Pure cocoa-nut fibre, or equal 
parts of the fibre and mellow loam, pure leaf-mould, 
and very dry, tough, fibry peat, in which there are old 
hummocks of grass, are soils that suit this fine fern to 
perfection. It will bear sunshine well, but grows more 
luxuriantly in the shade. In a very dry position where 
no water can lodge about it, but sprinkled daily all the 
summer, this fern will attain to grand dimensions, and 
be one of the most beautiful in the collection all through 
the autumn and winter months. 
