IN-DOOR CULTIVATION. 
5 
slide downward into the lower positions. Water 
before planting, and from time to time as needed; 
but let there be opportunity of drainage, so that 
the bed never becomes marshy or sour; as, though 
Osmunda and Aspidium Thelypteris like this, and some 
few others, as Blechnum , Aspidium spinulosum and 
dilatatum , can endure it, to the majority it would be 
injurous, if not fatal. Should the heat of summer be 
too great, and shrivel up any of the tender plants, 
they may be restored, and kept in order by duly 
watering at night. The wild plants may be removed 
at any season of the year, though the autumn is the 
fittest. In the winter many will have died down, till 
hardly discernible, except to a practised eye. A fiesh 
addition of peat, or leaf-mould, seems to be the only 
manure yet recommended. The more delicate sorts 
may, perhaps, be well covered in from the frost by 
straw or heaps of leaves. It may here be mentioned, 
that the vicinity of water is a favourable position for a 
fernery, and where such does not naturally exist it 
may well be introduced, either as a small basin or 
rivulet, the border of which will afford the means of 
growing a great many curious subaquatic and bog 
plants, and the projections will be excellent positions 
for Osmunda, Water-lilies occupying the centre. 
In a volume written by Mr. John A. Smith, Ex- 
Curator of the Royal Gardens at Kew, called ‘ Ferns 
British and Foreign/ * we have not only excellent 
* London: David Bogue, 3 St. Martin’s Place, W.C. Price 7 s. 6 d. 
