422 
THE COTTAGE GAEDENER. 
March 11. 
liead either in Vaillant or Lamarck, nor is it evident that 
the latter ever found the plant. The wall at Layton has 
been repaired, and the I’ern almost destroyed. On Snowdon 
it is said to be very scarce, though Mr. Wilson, with his 
usual bounty, has sent me an ample supply of siieciniens of 
various sizes. He describes it as “ varying greatly in size 
and appearance, but always distinct from the The 
cover, as that gentleman remarks, “ is in both species, con¬ 
nected with the frond by its base onlj', at the lower side of 
the mass of capsules, that is, on the side next the base of the 
segment of the leaflet which agrees with my observations. 
TTiis Fern is well compared by Bohart, in iNlorison, to the 
Ciciilariu of old authors, our Vheprophyllmn sylvestre, 
so common on banks in llie spring. It is unquestionably 
<listinct from every other British Fern, though the proper 
name and synonyms were not discovered till after its ap¬ 
pearance in Engl. Bot., where I fell into the same error with 
some foreign botanists. Linnaeus once thought it a Swedish 
plant, but erroneously, nor had he an original or authentic 
specimen. 
“ The remarks of Dr. Richardson, inserted between 
brackets, by Dillenius, in the third edition of Ray’s Synopsis, 
12G. n. 8. Ed. .‘i., certainly do not answer to the present 
species; as my late friend the Rev. Hugh Davies, an ex¬ 
cellent observer, first pointed out to me. 
“John Bauhin’s synonym, which Ray quoted with doubt, 
appears, by tl»e really excellent figure, to be unquestionably 
our plant. It must he either this or Aspidium alpiitnm, 
Willd. n. l-in., which is likewise a Cystea, figured in Jac. Ic. 
liar. t. 042, and in Segn. Eeron. Snppl. f. l.f. 3. But neither 
the plant itself, not either of these representations, suits 
the wooden cut of Bauhin, which agrees far better Avith 
U. regia, particularly in the shape of the leaflets. Haller, 
very unsuitably I think, refers it to Pteris vrispa; which 
circumstance, and the singular jumble of synonyms under 
his n. 1707, Cystea fragilis, induces a suspicion that he had 
not accurately observed these alpine ferns, and especially 
that he had never seen Yaillant’s Filicidu regia at all.” 
On the culture of this, and other species of the genus, 
we have been obliged with the follow’ing notes from Mr. 
W. Reeve, who has very successfully cultivated Ferns :— 
“ I have had several species of Gystopteris in iny 
possession, but hav'e not had all the species, but such 
as I have tried, I have always found to prefer and 
thrive best in well-drained situations. The only in¬ 
stance that I have of their cultivation, out-of-doors, was 
upon some rock work which I formed at the north end 
of our conservatory, where there was a piece of brick¬ 
work (which did not look very sightly) about two aiid a- 
half or three feet high, and I formed this rockwork to 
hide it, but you may imagine that the more elevated 
part of it must have been very much drained, when 1 
had only about eighteen inches for the base. Jt was 
upon this piece of work tliat I placed (among other 
small, young Ferns) a plant of each of the Cyslopterxs 
that I had in my possession. They were three in 
number, Fragilis, Dichieana, and Aljiina. 
“ For cultivation in pots, I used, for compost, two parts 
sandy loam, one of leaf-mould, and one of very finely- 
broken sandstone ; or, in default of this, old )nortar 
broken fine, with a little silver-sand added, and good 
drainage. Great points in potting these small species 
of Fern are the state of the compost, and the way it is 
mixed and used. It should be of a nice dampness, 
j In mixing, it should not be rubbed too intimately to- 
1 gether, but should be handled carelessl}', as it w'ere, 
and the plants patted firmly, in most cases, and if used 
in this state, and the plants are placed in a rather con¬ 
fined temperature, very little water must be given until 
they begin to emit new roots, which will not be long 
first, if the plant is in a healthy state; and even if it is 
not in sound health, the withholding of the water-pot 
from it will do it more good than the application of it. 
The moisture in the compost will be sufficient for the j 
roots until fresh ones are formed, and the moist atmo- j 
sphere will help to supply the fronds. When planted 
in the rockwork a similar compost may be used. 
“Each of the species would make a nice plant for a 
Wardian case, I should think. I have grown Dichieana 
under a bell-glass for a considerable time, and I have a 
specimen of Fragilis by me that I grew in a close tem¬ 
perature, but Dichieana and Alpina objected to heat 
more than Fragilis!’ 
CLAPTON NURSERY. 
Y’^oong gardeners, after they pass their apprenticeship, 
ought to spend some time in a good nursery, on pur¬ 
pose to learn the art and mystery of propagation; and 
amateurs, who spend freely in buying plants, ought to 
insist on it, as a privilege, to be permitted to visit the 
propagating houses of the nurseries they patronize, once 
a year, at least, where a new world would open to their 
wondering eyes. 
It is not fair to bother a man about anything, much 
less about his private concerns and the secrets of his 
calling, unless you have a good claim upon him ; and 
the best claim on his particular calling is to be “ a good 
customer.” A good customer, in a nursery, is one who 
spends his money freely on jdants and seeds, and he 
alone is entitled to the privilege of seeing through the 
propagating houses occasionally. On the other hand, 
an old gardener, like me, dreads a nursery more than the 
war. Once there, through necessity, he fears the com¬ 
petition with younger men will bear dowm his prospects 
of obtaining agood situation through the influence of that 
nursery, and knowing that bad situations are always in 
the market, he is placed between two stools. Wlieu an 
order for a gardener for one of such places “comes in,” 
if he refuses to take it he may offend his best friend, 
and if he engages, he knows it is not for “ a certainly.” 
A good young gardener will not go to a place which has 
a “ bad namebut an old one must, under such cir¬ 
cumstances; hence his dread of a nursery. 
1 wrought in four different nurseries before I was a 
gardener on my own account, and from thus learning so 
much of the craft, 1 never go into a nursery now, but 
they make me an otter to see everything, progagation 
and all. On the present occasion, 1 had to spend a good 
deal of time in this nursery, to see the arrangements 
compleled for sending out so many ])lants to the Warden 
of Christ’s College in Van Dieman’s Land, therefore I 
had more opportunities to see all the secrets and 
manoeuvres of the trade than falls usually in a man’s 
way, and if I cannot answer all the questions of the 
last six months on this head, and anticipate others on 
all kinds of propagation for the next six month.s to 1 
come, I ought to give up writing on gardening alto- * 
gether. 1 have some of the most woiulerful tilings I | 
ever heard of to relate in this story, but I shall leave ' 
the reader to judge which is the most so out of three 
things. ' 
It has often been heard, no doubt, how very difficult 
it is to raise seedlings of the fAliuin giganteum of 
India, and that no gardener in this country could do ; 
so for the space of full twenty years, and that at last it i 
had to be introduced by roots. Lord Hardinge, when ’ 
he was Governor-General of India, was the last who . 
