bole of a smooth-stemmed giant beech, where all is moss-grown and cool and twilight; where moss and lichen and seedling fern are the only vegetation, yet all forming the most lovely microscopic fernery one could wish to see. And such lovely little corners are possible even to the pent-up dwellers in cities. An unsightly shady corner in a narrow, wall-enclosed back-yard may be easily turned into a thing of beauty without expense. It is the fashion for writers on fern-culture, in recommending these beautiful ferns to people who have no means of adorning their homes with the beautiful in Art, dogmatically to prescribe certain materials as being necessary for their cultivation. Among these materials will be found lóam, peat earth, leaf-mould, silver sand, &c. A little thought should convince these well-meaning people that such a rigid prescription must tend to defeat the object in view. They wish to giadden and brighten the homes of the poor by the introduction of the most beautiful forms of Nature, but the poor in large cities find it difficult to obtain these materials, and to build up an outdoor fernery in the little back-yard would require large quantities of each. So the would-be fern-grower is repelled at once. But that such substances-however desirable they may be are not an absolute necessity, we have proved throughout eight or nine years of fern-culture in the Metropolis. The chief requisites are protection from the sun and wind, and plenty of percolating moisture. We will relate our experience of Fernery construction. At the southern end of our little plot of ground rose a brick wall some fifteen feet in height. At the base of this we excavated the earth to a depth of three or four feet, getting therefrom ordinary garden mould, gravelly clay, and brickbats. Into the excavation we threw a large quantity of coalashes and cinders from the neighbouring dust-bin; these we moistened and beat down into a compact body. Next we threw on the gravel, repeated the beating process, and then cast up the mould, after lightening it with cocoa-nut fibre refuse, a substance which can be obtained retail at the rate of five bushels for one shilling. We now operated upon the broken brickbats, of which we had rather a liberal supply, embedding them in a mortar made by the addition of water to mould, well mixed. For such purposes this makes an admirable cement, which has the merit of soon becoming moss-grown. The bricks were embedded here and there to give firmness to the bank; not in any pattern, but just cropping out of the soil to afford extra shade and moisture to a delicate species. We also used a quantity of coke, for the same purpose, after dipping it into a liquid solution of mould. Next summer the coke and brick were beautifully coated with moss, in which the fallen spores are now giving rise to tiny seedlings. We also made use of virgin cork to simulate tree stumps, &c.; but this, of course, is perfectly unnecessary. The ferns grow here well, and beneath their fronds we have from time to time introduced many shade-loving wild plants, such as the pretty Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella), the fragrant Woodruff (Asperula odorata), the Wood Anemone (Anemone nemorosa), Ground Ivy (Nepeta gle H choma), Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia), Wild Hyacinth (Scilia nutans), Violets (Viola), and on the highest parts various species of Stonecrop (Sedum). Mosses will introduce themselves; but it is as well to give help by bringing home from a country ramble a few patches of fruiting mosses, so that the spores may distribute themselves over the fernery, and, vegetating, lend an additional charm to the whole. We wish it to be understood that, in the foregoing remarks, our object is not to disparage such adjuncts as the peat earth, leaf-mould, sandstone, &c.; where they are accessible, by all means use them, but do not abandon the growth of ferns because you have not these materials. We have not space to give a list of species and cultural directions, but in lieu thereof would recommend our readers to get a cheap little work on "Ferns and Ferneries," recently published,* to which we are indebted for the illustrations to this Chapter. * Ferns and Ferneries. London: Marshall Japp & Co., 1880. CHAPTER VII. THE FOLK-LORE OF PLANTS. WHAT a wealth of legend and romance cling to our native flora! There is scarcely a well-known wilding which has not had something to do with the fairies-the dear wee folk who dwelt in flowers, and were always performing good deeds-who trooped out at night to dance in the beams of "the pale-faced moon," led by Queen Mab, "In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the forefinger of an alderman, That they did so dance to the music rung out by the delicate Hare-bells was a certainty, for could you not in the morning see the ring their tiny feet had marked upon the meadow? Such we believed, but matterof-fact Science steps in and makes the following explanation, driving away all thoughts of fairies from our minds :-"A patch of spawn, according to the fashion of many Fungi, spreads centrifugally in every direction, and produces a crop at its outer edge. The soil in the inner part of the disc is exhausted, and the spawn there dies or becomes effete. The crop of fungi meanwhile perishes and supplies a rich manure to the grass, which is in consequence |