222 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ March 15, 1888 
the soil will admit of that depth. In trenching well mix with the soil 
from top to bottom a good quantity of the best old manure. Should the 
soil be of a light sandy nature it will be greatly improved for the 
Asparagus by adding a dressing of ground bones ; if of a clayey texture, 
lime rubbish and road scrapings may be liberally added. After the 
ground has been prepared as advised the beds may be formed. These 
should be 5^ feet in width, with alleys of 3 feet between them. In such 
beds the plants can be placed 1 foot apart and 9 inches in the rows. 
The best for planting are those one year old from seed, which should be 
very carefully taken up with a fork, not a spade, exercising great care 
so as not to injure the roots in any way. They should be covered as 
soon as lifted with a mat, as the roots of the Asparagus soon feel the 
effects of the air. The fibres are very brittle, and great care should 
be taken not to break them, as they do not shoot out very quickly 
after once being injured. Having the plants ready, stretch a line 
lengthways on the bed 9 inches from the edge, and proceed with a spade 
to cut out a trench 6 inches deep ; then set a row of plants along the 
trench 9 inches apart, keeping the crowns 2 inches below the surface, 
placing some earth over them just to fix them in their place till the 
whole row is planted. After this is done rake back the earth into the 
trench evenly, and proceed to mark out the next trench in the same 
manner at 1 foot from the first row, and so on till four rows are planted. 
The bed should be lightly raked lengthways, taking off all big clods and 
stones, leaving the surface even and neat ; then line out the edges in an 
exact manner, leaving an alley as above stated. Do not stand on the 
bed more than is necessary, as the soil must be kept as light as possible. 
If such a practice is carried out good Asparagus will be fit to cut in 
three years. Keep the bed at all times free from weeds, and abstain 
from sowing Lettuces, &c., on them. —Amateur. 
RICHARDIAS. 
May I venture a pica for the planting-out system of growing the 
Rlchardia ? Like Mr. Record I have tried both ways, but unlike him I 
prefer the planting-out system. He says, “ Some advise, and probably 
succeed, in growing them well by planting them out after flowering.” 
I feel sure the probability if any rests with the pot culture. I think the 
majority of growlers adhere to the planting-out system, and Mr. Record’s 
experience is an exception. From an economical point of view it 
possesses a great advantage over the other systems, for after they are 
planted out they can be left to their own resources till the autumn ; 
but we prefer to treat them well all the year through. Mr. Record finds 
they flower earlier, more freely, and produce better foliage ; I am in a 
position to dispute all three points, for our plants began to flower in the 
middle of November. It is not possible for plants to flower more freely, 
and their foliage is all that can be desired, large, stout, and a beautiful 
dark colour. I heartily agree that there are few plants to surpass these 
for house decoration. We use ihem in quantity, both in large pots and 
small ones. I will give our culture for the past year. 
Owing to pressure of work they were not planted out till the third 
week in June, but we prefer having them out in May. They were 
planted on rich ground that had received a good dressing of decayed 
manure previously. The plants were place(l in rows, about 2 feet 
apart each way. The ground was trodden firmly round them, 
leaving a shallow basin round each one. They received a good 
watering when planted, and afterwards about every fortnight. 
Towards autumn, when growing vigorously, they were watered with the 
drainings from the manure heap. They w'ere lifted on the 22nd of 
September, having been copiously watered the day before, and were 
crowded with healthy roots. Each plant was placed in as small a pot as 
possible, for we grow them specially for furnishing purposes. The 
smallest were placed in 6-inch pots, the others ranging up to No. 8’s. 
For compost we used loam and Mushroom bed refuse in equal parts, with 
a good dressing of sheep manure rubbed through a fine sieve. The soil 
was rammed as firmly as possible. They were placed outside again, 
under a north wall, and syringerl twice daily to keep them from 
flagging ; not a single plant drooped. They were left here till the 29th of 
September, when we were obliged to house them for fear of frost. They 
were placed in a house with a night temperature of 45°, with a 
rise of 5° to 10° during the day. They were next removed to an early 
Peach house to retard them, for they were not wanted as early as 
expected ; but we had a fine supply of spathes by November 18th, and 
they have been yielding quantities of spathes ever since. They will in 
all probability continue to do so till May, as they have done previously, 
and we have every reason to be satisfied both with their quantity 
and quality. I am surprised Mr. Record has kept his jjlants so 
successfully on the “ Blue Riblxm ” system. I doubt if many growers 
have done the same. The plants under notice have been heavily fed 
with Clay’s Fertilizer, Wood’s Univereal Manure, liquid sheep manure, 
soot water, and drainings from the manure heap. They have a goo<l 
watering every day, and the soil is bristling with roots on the surface. 
This will show that Richardias can be grown on the planting-out system 
as well as that advocated by your correspondent.— James B. RiDixct. 
FILMY FERNS. 
The presentation to the Royal Gardens, Kew, by Mr. Stuart Forster 
of the whole collection of Filmy Ferns as.sembled together by his 
father, recalls to mv mind s ich happy hours occasionally spent at 29, 
Upper Grosvenor Street, in the agreeable company of Mr. J. Cooper 
Forster, who honoured me with his iriends’nip. and in that oE his pet 
plants, the culture of which formed his principal recreation, that I feel 
bound to refer to my now almost old note books and devote a few 
retrospective lines to these circumstances with which so much happiness 
remains connected that they cannot possibly be forgotten. To begin 
with, it is necessary to remind the reader that the love of Filmy Ferns 
was such with the late Mr. J. Cooper Forster that anyone sharing to any 
degree his kindly feelings towards that most interesting, though much 
neglected class of plants, always received the most cordial welcome at 
his hands. We have heard how his kindheartedness endeared him to all 
those connected with the surgical profession, of which he was one of 
the greatest ornaments. Tales without number are told every day 
showing how he could win the sympathy of the equally numberless 
patients under his treatment during his long stay at Guy’s Hospital. 
The love of his students towards him is proverbial ; his benevolent 
inclination was shown in many ways, and I may safely say that all 
charities organised with the object of alleviating the distress of either 
individuals or bodies met with a ready acceptance, which was in the 
majority of cases followed by a substantial acknowledgment. In fact, 
his kindly nature was such that the sufferings of a fellow creature, to 
whatever station in life he might belong, were sure to draw from him a 
feeling of sympathy and an attempt at relief. Cases without number 
are reported where his surgical skill was brought into requisition, and 
successful operations were by him performed, all free of charge, to many 
sufferers who had been abandoned by their own medical advisers. And 
in that respect the gardening confraternity held a prominent place, for 
many are there now in nurseries and gardens who can testify to his kind 
and generous treatment which saved their life after they had beeik 
completely given over. And this opportunity gives me the greatest 
satisfaction of paying a just tribute of admiration and gratitude towards 
the memory of such a learned and eminent member of society. His 
spare time he would devote to angling, a pastime for which he had a 
great predilection, and to the cultivation of his Ferns, for which his. 
devotion was such that, from the time he began collecting them 
and until his death, he attended personally to their wants, and that 
withiesults in all respects complete, as must be admitted by all who 
have had the good fortune of seeing them at Upper Grosvenor Street, 
where their owner was particularly fond of imparting his own and 
dearly bought knowledge to his less experienced visitors. 
His commencement, like that of all other beginners, were marked by 
sad mishaps, but being gifted with a very keen power of observation, 
and being particularly tenacious in the attainment of any object he had 
in view, Mr. J. Cooper Forster introduced in the culture of Filmy Ferns 
notions entirely new, diametrically opposed to those then in practice, 
and which at the time were very much ridiculed, although their general 
adoption in our days prove the soundnses of these ideas, the principal 
one of which was the cultivation of Filmy Ferns under cool treatment. 
At the outset, in common with all other growers, and having only for 
examples cultivators who subjected their plants to stove temjjerature, 
he had a small heating apparatus, of hot-water pipes supplied from the 
kitchen boiler and provided with a sort of evaporating tank or cistern 
introduced into the fernery in which West Indian species, it is true, 
such as Trichomanes anceps, T. auriculatum, T. Bancrofts T. crispum, 
the splendid T. alatum ; the extremely curious T. floribundum, whose 
fronds have their pinnfe beautifully fringed with hair-like receptacles ; 
the erect growing and handsome T. Kaulfussi, whose narrow, rather 
hairy dull green fronds are borne on broadly winged hairy stalks ; the 
superb T. maximum and others luxuriated ; but on the other hand the 
more numerous series, that composed of the species native from New 
Zealand, Chili, and other temperate regions, in spite of all care and 
constant attention, were gradually dwindling away. It is then that 
Mr. J. Cooper Forster resolved to do away entirely with artificial heat, 
and to depend only on the influence of a cool, moist, and close atmo¬ 
sphere. The structure devoted to the Ferns Isung small, it was with 
the utmost difficulty that it could be heated to a given degree only, so- 
the hot-water pipes were at last dispensed with altogether. From that 
time, if some of the West Indian kinds languished a little all the others 
began to grow apace ; the vigour of the New Zealand and Chilian 
species under that new treatment was the astonishment of all interested 
in their cultivation ; and the masses of Trichomanes radicans and its 
varieties, also those of Hymenophyllum nitens, demissum, flexuosum, 
and others from which he frequently detached handfuls of rhizomes to 
start some new beginner, showed that they, at least, thoroughly appre¬ 
ciated the change and enjoyed cool treatment. The delicately trans¬ 
parent and comb like fronds of the Chilian Hymenophyllum pectinatum, 
and those of the superb Brazilian H. Forsterianum, which formerly were 
very sparsely produced and always had a stunted appearance, were now 
produced in great abundance ; they were besides attaining large dimen¬ 
sions, showing a robust constitution, far surpassing all that had been 
expected from these species when they were first imported from their 
native habitats. The same remarks apply also to the charming West 
Indian H. asplenioides, which in its wild state is found hanging in 
masses from mossy rocks or trunks of trees ; to the H. caudiculatum, a 
Chilian species of great beauty, with erect and curving, or pendent 
thrice-divided fronds which frequently attain 12 to 15 inches in length ;• 
to the small, dwarf-growing H. Chiloense, from Southern Chili; to the 
extremely curious and charming H. cruentum, with broad undivided 
seaweed-like curving and beautifully veined fronds that, when old, are of 
a brownish rose colour, found in no other Filmy Fern ; to the beautifully 
crisped and transparent H. dichotomum, which, like the preceding 
species, is also a native from Chili ; and to the really charming West 
Indian H. valvatum, with ovate, attenuated, nearly smooth, dark greea 
