The Fern House. 
33 
CHAPTER VIL 
THE FERN HOUSE. 
E are now becoming “ expensive and hard to 
please/' 5 We want a fern house—oh dear ! 
how our wants increase with increase of know¬ 
ledge and advance of taste. Any man could live con¬ 
tented on just double the amount of income he has 
already, and the fern grower at any time could promise 
to be satisfied if he could be sure of advancing from a 
frame to a house, or from a house to another and a larger 
house, and from such ferns as anybody could grow in 
a modest cool fernery to tree ferns of gigantic growth, 
and the gorgeous Leptopteris superha , which is perhaps 
the loveliest fern in the world, and rather too dear as 
yet, and needing too much care for the humble fern 
grower ever to dream about it. 
By a fern house I mean some sort of cave or rockery 
covered with glass and with or without heating apparatus. 
The best example of a fernery of this sort I know of, 
to which the public have access, may be seen at Messrs. 
Yeitch and Sons* nursery, Chelsea. It is truly a garden 
with gravel walks amidst rocks and waterfalls, and on 
every hand the ferns present themselves in sheets of 
delicious verdure or in waving palm-like masses, or in 
a glorious confusion of brake and lastrea intermingled 
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