*

too, constituting but a very small fraction of the 1508 species which Sadler enumerates in his general catalogue. Mr. Newman, in his recent work, has figured more than eighty varieties, the natural growth of our own isles alone, and mentions fourteen distinct species found in one chasm at Ponterwyd! Though some of the tail-piece vignettes of his volume fail in representing-as how could it be otherwise? -the natural abandon and elegance of this most graceful of all plants, we would still recommend the great variety and beauty of his larger illustrations as much to the artist and manufacturer, and embellisher, as to the fern-collector himself.

Our notice of ferns might seem rather foreign to the subject of ornamental gardening (though we shall have something to say of a fernery by and bye), were it not for the opportunity it affords us of introducing, probably for the first time to many of our readers, a botanical experiment, which, though for some years past partially successful, has but lately been brought to very great perfection for the purposes both of use and ornament. We allude to the mode of conveying and growing plants in glass-cases hermetically sealed from all communication with the outer air. There are few ships that now arrive from the East Indies without carrying on deck several cases of this description, belonging to one or other of our chief nurserymen, filled with orchideous plants and other new and tender varieties from the East, which formerly baffled the utmost care to land them.

A History of British Ferns, by E. Newman.

here in a healthy state. These cases, frequently furnished by the extreme liberality of Dr. Wallich, the enterprising and scientific director of the Hon. Company's gardens in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, form on shipboard a source of great interest to the passengers of a four-months' voyage, and, after having deposited their precious contents on our shores, return again by the same ship filled with the common flowers of England,

"That dwell beside our paths and homes,"

which our brethren in the East affectionately value by association above all the brilliant garlands of their sunny sky.

This interchange of sweets was a few years ago almost unattainable, the sea-air and spray, as is well known, being most injurious to every kind of plant; but their evil effects are now completely avoided by these air-tight cases, which admit no exterior influence but that of light. Without entering into any deep physiological explanation, it may be enough to say that vegetable, unlike animal life, does not exhaust the nutritive properties of air by repeated inhaling and exhaustion; so that these plants, aided perhaps by the perfect stillness of the confined atmosphere, so favourable to all vegetation, continue to exist, breathing, if we may so say, the same air, so long as there is moisture enough to allow them to deposit every night a slight dew on the glass, which they imbibe again during the day. The soil is moistened in the first instance, but on no account is any

further water or air admitted. The strangers which we have seen thus transmitted, being chiefly very small portions of succulents and epiphytes, though healthy, have shown no inclination to flourish or blossom in their confinement; but it must be remembered that the temperature on the deck of a ship must be very much lower than what this tribe requires, and the quantity of wood-work which the cases require to stand the roughness of the voyage, greatly impedes the transmission of light. As soon as the slips are placed in the genial temperature of the orchideous house, they speedily shoot out into health and beauty.

But while this mode of conveyance answers the purposes of science, a much more beautiful adaptation of the same principle is contrived for the bedroom garden of the invalid. Who is there that has not some friend or other confined by chronic disease or lingering decline to a single chamber?-one, we will suppose, who a short while ago was among the gayest and the most admired of a large and happy circle, but now through sickness dependent, after her One staff and stay, for her minor comforts and amusements on the angel visits of a few kind friends, a little worsted-work, or a new Quarterly, and, in the absence or dulness of these, happy in the possession of some fresh-gathered flower, and in watering and tending a few pots of favourite plants, which are to her as friends, and whose flourishing progress under her tender care offers a melancholy but instructive contrast to her own decaying strength. Some mild

WARD'S GLASS-CASES.

39

autumn-evening her physician makes a later visit than usual-the room is faint from the exhalations of the flowers-the patient is not so well to-day-he wonders that he never noticed that mignionette and those geraniums before, or he never should have allowed them to remain so long-some weighty words on oxygen and hydrogen are spoken-her poor pets are banished for ever at the word of the man of science, and the most innocent and unfailing of her little interests is at an end. By the next morning the flowers are gone, but the patient is no better; there is less cheerfulness than usual; there is a listless wandering of the eyes after something that is not there;* and the good doctor is too much of a philosopher not to know how the working of the mind will act upon the body, and too much of a Christian not to prevent the rising evil if he can; he hears with a smile her expression of regret for her long-cherished favourites, but he says not a word. In the evening a largish box arrives directed to the fair patient, and superscribed, "Keep this side upwards-with care." There is more than the common interest of box-opening in the sick chamber. After a little tender hammering and tiresome knot-loosening, Thompson has removed the lid ; and there lies a large oval bell-glass fixed down to a stand of ebony, some moist sand at the bottom, and here and there over the whole surface some tiny ferns are just pushing their curious little fronds into life, and already

* ὀμμάτων δ ̓ ἐν ἀχηνίαις

ἔῤῥει πᾶσ ̓ ἀφροδίτα.-AscH. Agam. 408.

promise, from their fresh and healthy appearance, to supply in their growth and increase all the beauty and interest of the discarded flowers, without their injurious effects. It is so. These delicate exotics, for such they are, closely sealed down in an air-tight world of their own, flourish with amazing rapidity, and in time produce seeds which provide a generation to succeed them. Every day witnessing some change keeps the mind continually interested in their progress, and their very restriction from the open air, while it renders the chamber wholesome to the invalid, provides at the same time an undisturbed atmosphere more suited to the development of their own tender frames. We need scarcely add, that the doctor the next morning finds the wonted cheerful smile restored, and though recovery may be beyond the skill, as it is beyond the ken, of man, he at least has the satisfaction of knowing that he has lightened a heart in affliction, and gained the gratitude of a humble spirit, in restoring, without the poison, a pleasure that was lost.

For more minute particulars of the management of these chamber-gardens, we must refer our readers to page xviii. of Mr. Newman's Introduction, where also they will find described the ingenious experiments of Mr. Ward, of Wellclose Square, of the same kind, but on a much larger scale; and if delicate health restricts any friend of theirs to the confinement of a close apartment, we recommend to them the considerate kindness of our good physician, and to "go and do likewise.'