10 
The Fern Garden . 
at home when you have planted them in the garden. 
Some thrive on perpendicular walls of stone and brick, 
others in the moist woodland shade, others on the bleak 
mountain top, and many a glorious group may be 
found on the sides and roofs of caverns, which they 
make like fairy palaces with their green feathery 
plumes and golden dottings of mysterious fruit. 
However many lessons you may learn of the habits of 
the several kinds of ferns, there should be one lesson 
impressed upon your mind more deeply than any — it 
is this, that, much as they love moisture, it is a most 
rare thing to see a fern growing with its roots naturally 
in water. When they congregate, as it were, to drink 
of the brook that passes by, they keep their feet clear 
away from the current, and lodge safely on the slopes 
that dip towards the water ; or stand proudly upon 
little islets that compel the stream to sing as it passes 
them ; or on banks and hummocks round about where 
they can enjoy the tiny splashes the trout make when 
they leap for flies, and the soft nourishing vapour that 
rises day and night amongst their shining fronds. 
Yes, it is upon slopes mostly that ferns love to grow; 
in places where water rarely lodges, but where moisture 
is abundant, and there is some shade against the noon- 
day summer sun. Note all you see of the whereabouts 
and ways of your favorites, and you will find that 
there is a better book on fern-growing than the one 
you are now reading — it is the Book or Nature, 
