THE FERN GARDEN: 
HOW TO MAKE, KEEP, AND ENJOY IT ; 
OR, 
FEEN CULTUKE MADE EASY. 
CHAPTER I. 
FERNS IN GENERAL. 
HAVE a fine opportunity now for a dry 
chapter. I have a good mind to hang up a 
tuft of straw to indicate that the way is 
dangerous, and to warn the reader not to proceed a 
line further. Perns, my friends, belong to the sub- 
kingdom of vegetables termed Cryptogamia, a sub- 
kingdom so named because it is the custom of the 
population to celebrate marriages in the dark, so that 
it can scarcely be averred of them to a certainty that 
they really marry at all. In this sub-kingdom there 
are several large tribes, such as the mosses, the horse- 
tails, the lichens and liver worts; but the ferns or filices 
are the most noble of all, associating with others freely, 
but towering above them in apparent consciousness of 
right to rule. 
