interest in ferns, a semi-artificial rockery, with
one end in wet ground and the other reaching dry-wood conditions, is
extremely interesting. In such a place, by obtaining some of the earth
with each specimen and tagging it carefully, an out-of-door herbarium
may be formed and something added to it every time an excursion is made
into a new region. Otherwise the ferns that are worth the trouble of
transplanting and supplying with soil akin to that from which they
came, are comparatively few. Of decorative species the Osmundas easily
lead; being natives of swampy or at least moist ground, they should have
a like situation, and yet so strong are their roots and crown of leaves
that they will flourish for years after the moisture that has fed them
has been drained and the shading overgrowth cut away, even though
dwarfed in growth and coarsened in texture. Thus people seeing them
growing under these conditions in open fields and roadside banks mistake
their necessities.

The Royal fern (_Osmunda regalis_) positively demands moisture; it will
waive the matter of shade in a great degree, but water it must have.

The Cinnamon fern, that encloses the spongelike, brown, fertile fronds
in the circle of green ones, gains its greatest size of five feet in
roadside runnels or in springy places between boulders in the river
woods; yet so accommodating is it that you can use it at the base of
your knoll if a convenient rock promises both reasonable dampness and
shelter.

The third of the family (_Osmunda Claytonia_) is known as the
Interrupted fern, because in May the fertile black leaflets appear in
the middle of the fronds and interrupt the even greenness. This fern
will thrive in merely moist soil and is very charming early in the
season, but like the other two, out of its haunts, cannot be relied
upon after August.

As a fern for deep soil, where walking room can be allowed it, the
common brake, or bracken (_Pteris aquilina_) is unsurpassed. It will
grow either in sandy woods or moist, and should have a certain amount of
high shade, else its broad fronds, held high above the ground
umbrella-wise, will curl, grow coarse, and lose the fernlike quality
altogether. You can plant this safely in the bit of old orchard that you
are giving over to wild asters, black-eyed Susan, and sundrops, but mind
you, be sure to take both Larry and Barney, together with a long
post-hole spade, when you go out to dig brakes,--they are not things