Many of the most useful decorative ferns, such as the Adiantums or Maidenhair section, and the equally useful Pteris serrulata and others, produce seed or spores freely, and only need a suitable seed-bed to give a continuous supply of healthy young seedling plants; but I find that amateurs' glasshouses are, in many cases, kept far too dry for such moisture-loving plants as ferns to exist in during the tender seedling state, when a very short period of actual drought suffices to cause them to perish. One of the best ways to insure a good supply of seedling ferns I have yet found is to put a layer of broken bricks, clinkers, and other rough porous material under the plant stages, and work some very fine soil amongst it; and, if this is kept constantly moist by syringing, the fertile spores will settle on it and vegetate in great quantities, and may be potted up as required, or used for cutting from, some of the strong growing ferns, such as Pteris tremula, being especially useful for cutting. - Gardening Illustrated.

If you want Ferns to luxuriate, and seedlings to spring up by hundreds, you must keep the water-pot in use winter and summer; the very life of Ferns is water, as anyone may prove by the luxuriance of our hardy native Ferns, as well as the great variety that are naturalized in localities where the moisture is excessive, and their almost total absence in dry, arid districts. Look at the healthy, luxuriant specimens that one finds hanging to the bricks or stones at the top of wells, where they are daily drenched with water winter and summer, and compare them with the same varieties under a glass roof where the water-pot and hose are put by for months during winter. I know many very successful amateur Fern cultivators who keep their plants in robust health with but very limited accommodation, for, unlike flowering plants, they do not require strong light, but do best in the shade; and as to soil, they will grow in nearly any kind if the drainage is good, and when this is perfect they can hardly be overdone with water.

To anyone anxious to try the raising of seedling Ferns who may not have a glass-house of their own, I would advise the half-filling of a shallow box with rough, porous material with a little fine soil worked amongst it, and on this lay any old Fern fronds that have the seed-spores visible on the backs of them. Keep constantly moist by means of a very fine-rosed water-pot or syringe, and cover with a large sheet of glass to prevent evaporation, set in any warm position, and await the result; if successful, the surface-soil will soon be covered with green scale-like growths, and then the various forms of leaves will spring up; let them make two or three good leaves, and then carefully lift with all the roots that can be got, and pot in 3-inch pots in light, sandy soil. A mixture of turf that is partly decayed, peat, and sand, will grow any of the ordinary kind of Ferns to perfection. - Gardening Illustrated.