Cultivation of Rock Ferns , 
19 
CHAPTER TV. 
CULTIVATION OF ROCK FERNS. 
OU have taken notice when fern collecting that 
many of the smaller kinds are only found on 
rocks and old walls, or, at all events, are never 
found in damp hollows or in places over much sheltered 
from the sun and the breeze. Now, all such ferns 
require peculiar treatment, and as you advance in 
practice the rock and wall-loving varieties will probably 
interest you more than all the rest. 
The first requisite to success is to plant them where 
it is impossible for water to become stagnant about 
their roots. In planting them on a rockery it is a good 
plan to take out a quantity of the soil from the place 
where the fern is to be, and introduce soil specially pre¬ 
pared for it. 
In preparing the stations put a lot of broken bricks 
or broken flower-pots and small stones into the holes, 
and upon these let there be full nine inches depth of 
the compost, and let it be raised into a hillock. 
Nearly all the ferns of this class will thrive in a 
mixture of equal parts of yellow loam of a silky nature, 
fibrous peat or the top crust of sandy soil from a com¬ 
mon where the ling and the brake grow together. There 
must be full one fourth of sand in the mixture, but the 
