THE FLORAL WORLD 



AND 



GARDEN GUIDE. 



M A Y, 1 8 G 9 . 

 ON COLLECTING AND CULTIVATING ALPINE PLANTS. 



With illustration of a group of Alpine Flowers. 

 BY 3VTES. T. TV". "WEBB. 



HE cultivation of Alpine plants is a subject that has been 

 discussed in the publications of twenty years ago or 

 more, and no doubt experience has very materially 

 assisted their treatment in this country ; but, as the 

 scarcer sorts are expensive to purchase, and often diffi- 

 cult to rear, it may not be uninteresting to the readers of this useful 

 magazine to get a few hints as to the method of bringing them from 

 Switzerland — a point of material consequence, which I have not seen 

 referred to — and, when brought, the plan to be adopted for their 

 management. Having very frequently visited Switzerland, and feel- 

 ing more and more interested in the country — with its beautiful 

 scenery, wonderful heights, and snowy ranges — I often longed to 

 bring back some of the lovely flowers which not only grow in abun- 

 dance in the valleys and on the higher summits of the Alps, but 

 even adorn the glaciers and moraines. I have been told by many 

 travellers that they had often attempted to bring roots from Switzer- 

 land, but the difficulty in rearing them afterwards was very great, 

 and though some few plants appeared to grow, they gradually died 

 oif in the course of two or three years. Undoubtedly there are 

 good reasons for this failure, as the conditions under which they 

 grow in the two countries are essentially different. In Switzerland 

 they are protected (at least the more mountainous kinds) by a coat- 

 ing of snow throughout the winter, which prevents the injurious 

 effects of the alternation of frost and thaw, from which delicate 

 plants suffer so much in our own country. They have also in their 

 original soil a great amount of natural drainage, combined with 

 a mixture of sand, decayed leaves, and peat ; and in this native soil 

 they luxuriate. This is of a kind not ordinarily found in England; 

 for we are obliged to prepare mould fitted to receive Alpine roots. 



VOL. IV. — NO. V. 9 



