71 
The Art of Multiplying Ferns . 
might make one for yourself by taking a shallow box, 
and covering it with sheets of stout glass. Make a bed 
inside the box of a few inches depth of cocoa-nut fibre, 
or silver sand, or clean small pebbles, and on this bed 
place the little pots and put the glass over. You have 
complete command over them by this plan to kill them 
by excess of shade and moisture, or by exposing them 
to sunshine ; or to make them grow by giving moisture 
and shade enough to keep them in the first instance, 
and to admit more light and air, to strengthen them as 
they advance and become strong enough to be shifted 
into larger pots. Small fern cases with moveable tops 
make admirable nurseries for seedlings when they are 
grown in sitting-rooms. 
We have spoken of ferns that run about and multiply 
by means of their rhizomas. A parallel case is seen in 
ferns that shed their spores, and sprout up into life with- 
out aid from any one, and almost anywhere. It will be 
amongst your earliest surprises and delights in fern grow- 
ing to find seedlings in your fern cases, on the banks, 
and walls, and stones, and even pavements of your 
fern-houses, and in crevices of the rockery out of doors. 
Some ferns increase spontaneously with such freedom 
as to become weeds, but the wise man will not despise 
them on that account. He will be quickened in love 
and thankfulness to God for making beauty so cheap on 
the face of the earth. He will rejoice that the humblest 
and least enlightened cannot fail to see that in the 
mystery of life is afforded us deep and blessed impres- 
sions of the direct relationship of the Divine nature 
to the manifestations of the Divine will in visible things. 
