20 BRITISH FERNS. 
_ Concerning the cultivation of each species of fern 
a few instructions will be given in the proper place; 
but one of the most interesting branches of fern 
culture is raising the various species from seed. 
Every fern, if dried and pressed. when the back is 
covered with ripe seed, leaves on the paper 
quantity of brown dust: that brown dust is the 
_ Seed, and is in a perfectly ripe state and quite 
ready for sowing: shake the dust from the paper 
on a dinner-plate; and then, having a small quan- 
tity of finely-sifted and sandy peat-earth ready to 
your hand, scatter it lightly over the seeds until 
they are completely covered; stir the earth about 
until the seeds have attached themselves to the peat- 
earth, and then spread this’ earth containing the seed 
very lightly on the surface of more earth prepared 
in a flower-pot or saucer, carefully covering the whole 
tightly with a bell-glass or propagator, and excluding, 
as far as possible, all communication with the dry 
and uncongenial air outside. In a very few weeks the 
surface of the earth will be covered with an olive- 
green coating of germinating fern-seed, from which 
here and there. minute convolute fronds will shortly 
