124 
The Fern Garden . 
CHAPTER XV. 
GOLD AND SILVER FERNS. 
ONE of the so-called gold and silver ferns are 
adapted for beginners. They are so superbly 
beautiful that people altogether unaccustomed 
to ferns buy them and put them in greenhouses, sup¬ 
posing that watering now and then is all the care they 
want, and in the course of a month or so the plants die, 
and an absurd inference is drawn from the occurrence 
that ferns in general are impossible things. It is quite 
certain that a very large number of maidenhair ferns 
are killed by ladies who pretend to love ferns and really 
have no real care for them at all; but probably there 
are more gymnogrammas killed through absurd treat¬ 
ment than any other class of ferns whatever. Yet they 
require but little more care than most others; their 
peculiarity is that if that care is denied them they die 
outright; whereas many other kinds survive neglect 
and ill-treatment, and regain their cheerful looks “ in 
no time if proper treatment is resorted to. 
If we could repeat in an intensified form all the 
cautions that have been given in this work up to this 
point we should have a practical code for the cultivation 
of gold and silver ferns. Instead of attempting that, I 
