Horticulture, Farming, &c.
ASPLENIUM FONTANUM.
This very rare and distinct Fern I have found growing in only one station in England—Sir W. J. Hooker gives two. The locality in which I found it was near Petersfield, Hampshire. This habitat is also mentioned by Mr. Moore in his ‟Handbook of British Ferns;” it was also found in Hants by the Rev. W. H. Hawker, in the year 1852, who read a note on its discovery by him, before the ‟Phytologist Club,” London, in which he says the locality is ‟not a hundred miles” from Ashfield Lodge, Petersfield, Hants, and very justly remarks ‟I am desired for obvious reasons not to publish the exact locality.” Mr. Hawker’s note is of considerable interest to the botanist, and is to be found in the "‟Phytologist” for January, 1853. You have very wisely remarked, in reply to your Westmoreland correspondent, page 218, ‟The system of denuding a station of every plant is a disgrace to botanists and collectors.” This I am sorry to say will ever be the case so long as there exist in this world people who are ‟penny wise and pound foolish.” These people will purchase from the so-called collectors in preference to a respectable nurseryman. I have my eye just at this moment upon one of these ‟collectors,” who was in the habit, for three seasons to my personal knowledge, of hawking Ferns about in a basket and donkey-cart, in the neighbourhood of Liverpool and Birkenhead, collected in various parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and who found ready purchasers among the fair sex at prices which were quite absurd; and the result of such purchases, in nine cases out of ten, was money thrown away, for the plants never lived. My advice in all such cases was, ‟If you want good Ferns, purchase them from a respectable nurseryman. Then you may have Trichomanes radicans, Asplenium fontanum, Adiantum Capillus-veneris, &c., &c., with little care on your part, as healthy and as lovely looking as in their native habitats. You should read Moore’s ‟British Ferns,” which is the best little work concerning their cultivation, or you can get Sim’s Catalogue, with excellent notes, prices, &c., which is all that could be wished; Lowe’s British and Exotic Ferns, with beautiful coloured plates; Newman’s British Ferns, Francis’ British Ferns, or the elaborate works of Sir J. W. Hooker, Mr John Smith, Mr Sowerby, &c., any of which will give the desired information concerning their habitats, botanical nomenclature, &c., without endangering your limbs and neck in scrambling up mountains, over rocks, precipices, or cataracts; in nine cases out of every ten finding the locality named as bare of the object of your search as a ploughed field, and all by your own meanness and encouragement of a set of vagabond collectors who are too idle to earn their bread in any other way.”— J. M‘Intosh, Matfen Hall, in West of Scotland Horticultural Magazine for March.