House and Garden 
All this time the custom of floral ornaments for looking in the house requires care and attention, 
the table was growing. 1 he birch bark designs such else they will look badly very soon, 
as logs, etc. were thought to look better with wood % How to select a fernery .—One of the most 
fern leaves in addition to flowers. Thus we fik important points to be looked after to 
were gradually following more closely 
Nature’s ideas. We were discard¬ 
ing designs with stiff formal lines 
and adopting those with more 
graceful curves. I hen followed 
growing plants of small ferns 
and lycopods, with bark de¬ 
signs. Then progressing again 
we had more ferns in different 
shaped designs. Then finally 
the bark was discarded altogeth¬ 
er, and straw baskets were filled 
with low-growing pretty ferns. 
Zinc pans were made to fit 
these baskets and the plants 
were planted. 
Thus the use of growing 
plants for special occasions 
has progressed until to-day the 
majority of people, be they 
wealthy or those of moderate 
means, rarely sit down to a 
meal without growing plants 
or a few cut blossoms as a 
centerpiece. In fact the fern¬ 
ery filled with growing plants 
is considered just as neces¬ 
sary as any other requisite for 
the table. 
They are generally made 
with an outer and inner case. 
The inner case being filled with 
plants can be taken out at pleas¬ 
ure and removed from the table 
whenever necessary for watering 
or sprinkling. 
So universal has the custom 
become that the filling of ferner- 
ies for the dinner table is a large 
. O 
part of the business of florists 
at the present time, and mil¬ 
lions of ferns are used every 
year for this purpose alone. 
One grower whom we know 
sold five hundred thousand 
ferns for ferneries in three 
months the past season and 
the custom has come to us so 
gradually we hardly realize it. 
Small ferneries filled with grow¬ 
ing plants are dainty and 
pretty and the admiration of 
all lovers of the beautiful, but 
to keep them pretty and fresh- 
Cyrtomium jalcatum (holly fern) Pteris serrula- 
ta, Aspidium Tsussimense, Pteris adiantoides, 
Pteris cristata, Pteris alba striata (white striped) 
insure success with ferneries is the 
shape and size of the receptacle 
in which you intend to have 
the plants planted. A fern¬ 
ery should be, at the very 
least, not less than three 
inches in depth. The 
sides should be perpen¬ 
dicular, never flare out¬ 
ward. Flanging pots of 
any kind are very imprac¬ 
ticable. We often see 
garden vases with wide 
flanges. We see every day 
fancy pots and jardinieres 
with flanging rims. When 
looking for a dinner fernery or 
a garden vase or a jardiniere, or 
a flower pot of any kind, pass by 
and reject all that flare out at 
the top. 
Why ? For the reason that 
this rim has not depth 
enough to hold the soil in 
sufficient quantity to sup¬ 
port anything and simply 
dries out at once 
So select the fernery with 
perpendicular sides. It can 
he of any shape you wish. 
Plants if they have depth of 
earth will grow as well in 
one shaped receptacle as an¬ 
other. The ferneries can be 
either silver, terra-cotta, earth¬ 
enware, or anything else, if they 
only have holes in the bottom 
for drainage. If they have no 
holes so the water can drain 
away then you must have a 
layer of charcoal in the bot¬ 
tom—or the fernery must be 
deep enough to allow of enough 
broken pots in the bottom to act 
as a drainage or else you must 
be very watchful with the water¬ 
ing, or the plants will become 
water-soaked and soon sour and 
turn yellow and brown. 
The soil .—Little ferns for the 
table will not grow in any com¬ 
mon soil from the garden. They 
want a soil composed of peat and 
sand, about one-fourth sand. A 
