340 



JOURNAL OF HOETICULTURE AND COTl'AGE GARDENER. 



[ Oetobet 14, 1S75. 



voiture at a less price than that anked the night before. I 

 answered, he need not distress himself, as I had the tickets 

 for the diligence in my pocket. 



Biasco is situated in a narrow valley at the head of the Lake 

 Maggiore, the river Ticino running into the lake past it. At 

 Biasco the valley branches, one road going to the St. Gothard 

 Pass, the other leads to the Lukmanur Pass. The valley from 

 Biasco to the Lago Maggiore, called Riviera, is very warm and 

 sheltered, and abounds in vineyards. We were very unlucky 

 in our day for crossing, the heat was intense ; there had been 

 no rain for a long time, and the roads were worked up into 

 white dust from 3 to 4 inches thick, mixed with loose stones. 

 The roads are mended with white granite containing a good 

 deal of gneiss, and owing to the railway being in process of 

 formation and their being at work at the tunnel between 

 Airolo and Goschenen, there had been a more-than-usual 

 amount of traffic along the roads, and they were much cut up ; 

 to add to our misery the wind was at our backs, and was 

 sufficiently strong to blow the dust after us, so as from time 

 to time completely to envelope us in clouds of dust, which pre- 

 vented na even from seeing the horses in our own diligence in 

 front of us. Three other carriages followed in our track, and 

 at times we had the accumulated dust of all three added to our 

 own ; add to this that a midday June sun was pouring down 

 upon us in a narrow valley, and your readers may judge that 

 our experiences were by no means pleasant. I will not, how- 

 ever, dwell on the discomforts, though till then I had no idea 

 how unpleasant dust could be. As in crossing by the great 

 Mont Cenis tunnel, so here, too, as we gradually rose the 

 valley of the Ticino the vegetation altered, and I was not 

 sorry to be rid of the white Mulberries to get to the Chestnuts 

 and Walnuts ; then after Airolo both the Vines and Chestnuts, 

 and also the Walnuts, ceased, and we reached the Firs and 

 the Pines. 



Between Bodio and Faido the mountaineers were busy in 

 securing their crops of hay, and it was rather strange to my 

 eyes to see all the hay carried to the stacks on men's backs. 

 Large cocks of hay were bound up with ropes and hoisted on to 

 men's shoulders, where they were carried on a peculiar kind of 

 shoulder-boards, with projecting arms below the shoulder- 

 blades, the rope being grasped in front, and the bundle of hay 

 held taut against the shoulders. This contrivance seemed to 

 equalise the weight, and great bundles of hay were carried in 

 this way where it would have been almost impossible for a 

 cart to have worked. i 



After Airolo, where one end of the long St. Gothard tunnel 

 begins, the scenery began rapidly to change. The St. Gothard 

 tunnel will be about a mile longer than that through Mont Cenis ; 

 they are working it by means of water power from each end, 

 but they do not expect to have it finished till the year 1881. 

 Soon after crossing the opening of the tunnel at Airolo the 

 road begins to make a rapid ascent up the Val Tremolo by 

 means of zigzags. Here we passed through meadows filled 

 with alpine plants, which were at that time in full flower, and 

 nowhere did I see them in greater profusion. But here I may 

 venture to remark that — though my own experience, perhaps, 

 is limited — I cannot see that there are many more wild flowers 

 to be found in these alpine regions than in our own lanes and 

 hedgerows. Some, no doubt, as the Primula farinosa. Primula 

 auricula. Gentian, Ac., are very pretty, but on the whole I 

 was disappointed, and never found them anywhere in the same 

 abundance as I had been led to expect. After the alpine 

 meadows our road laid through some Pine woods, where, in 

 walking from one zigzag to another, we came upon a very 

 beautiful fall of the river Tessin or Ticino. Soon after this 

 the road continues to rise very rapidly by means of zigzags, 

 in one place there being no less than twenty-eight in succes- 

 sion, and we were very soon above the limit of the Pine woods 

 to vegetation of the most barren description, chiefly Moss and 

 Lichen, though here and there plants are to be found of the 

 dwarf DianthuB, Ac. The top of the Col de St. Gothard is 

 C936 feet above the sea (for which information I am indebted 

 to Murray). We did not reach there till after eight o'clock, 

 and found the inn and opposite hospice at the top full to over- 

 crowding of Italian workmen, who are quarrying the loose 

 boulders of granite for the sake of the masonry and approaches 

 to the tunnel. They were all eating a sort of stirabout soup 

 of maccaroni out of wooden bowls. I do not think I ever saw 

 humanity packed much closer together feeding. 



We only stopped at the top to change horses, and then went 

 downtoHorpenthal. Thedtsoent in thedark was by no means 

 pleasant, the drivers and horses, which are accustomed to the 



work, swinging the diligence round figure-of-8 curves, with a 

 descent of about 1 in 7, at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour. 

 The diligence stays for the night at Andermat, but we stopped 

 short at Horpenthal with the intention, if it were fine, the 

 next day of paying a visit to the Rhone glacier at the Furca, 

 but fates decreed it otherwise. The next day looked threaten- 

 ing, and we wisely gave up the idea, and at one o'clock, or 

 before, it began to pour and continued the rest of the day. In 

 the morning I climbed with a friend a short way up the side 

 of one of the hills to look for alpine plants, and found some 

 good beds of Primula farinosa, which seem to like the damper 

 situation. 



I had no idea before how hardy the common Alder was ; it 

 was here growing above the line of the Firs, and where the 

 little ravines were still covered with snow the bougbs, which 

 had been completely weighed down and covered with snow, 

 were beginning to start into leaf, while those growing on the 

 tops of the ravines were nearly in full foliage. Can any of 

 your readers tell me if there is any tree that will grow at a 

 higher elevation than the Alder ? 



The next day we abandoned the diligence (not being sorry 



after our experience to be rid of that means of locomotion), 



j and took a carriage for Tells Platte on the Lake of Lucerne. 



I The roads after the rain were a pleasant change from our 



previous day ; and what most struck me in our day's travel 



j was the great luxuriance of the Ferns. The first we saw, or 



rather which much attracted our attention, were some beauti- 



^ ful plants of the Parsley Fern growing in the walls which 



support the road in the zigzags immediately after pasfing the 



Devil's Bridge, where the road crosses over the foaming torrent 



of the Eeuss. From that point all the way down to Arusteg 



we saw Ferns in abundance, chiefly Pteria aquilina, Adiantum, 



Athyrium Filix-fccmina, Lastrea, Ac. 



I will now digress to remark that those persona who think it 

 right to make artificial rockwork look like natural stratification 

 are mistaken. What I have so often observed before in moor- 

 land dales and narrow ravines up the sides of mountain 

 streams I noticed here too on a larger scale — that the Ferns 

 were never growing in the natural stratification, but in the 

 debris of the fallen rocks, among loose stones, under huge 

 boulders, or wherever the soil washed oB the overhanging clifia 

 was covered with broken rocks. Nowhere — and I kept a good 

 look-out here and afterwards among the hills and rocks on the 

 sides of the Lake of Lucerne — did I see Ferns growing out of 

 the strata where it had been exposed by the fracture of the 

 rock. Why I am induced to make these remarks is because 

 some persons — and among them Mr. Ingram of Belvoir, whose 

 opinion I do not like to gainsay — find fault with any rock- 

 work put together for the sake of growing Ferns and alpine 

 plants unless every stone is laid in its natural bed. Now, I 

 have found as an invariable rule that where I have seen Ferns 

 growing best has been under cliffs and in ravines, or by the 

 side of mountain streams where no single stone is lying and in 

 its natural bed — that is, in the strata in which it was deposited. 

 About Baveno and again about Bellagio the finest specimens of 

 Ferns were growing in the walls by the side of the vineyards 

 and roads. And after passing Goschenen on the St. Gothard 

 route to Wasen, where the road passes through Pine forests, 

 the Ferns are all growing most luxuriantly in the debris of the 

 rocks which fall from the stupendous cliffs that tower many 

 thousands of feet overhead. It is a mistake, I maintain, to try 

 in rockwork to imitate cliffs and stratification. This I shall 

 allude to again when I conclude these notes with a few re- 

 marks on Battersea Park, which I went to see on my return, 

 in order to compare our English and foreign gardening ; and 

 my apology is due cii j'asfant to Mr. Rogers who kindly escorted 

 me round Battersea Park, for being so long before I get to the 

 end of what I am afraid your readers will think a somewhat 

 prosy paper. 



What I maintain is, the object of rockwork and rockeries is 

 to grow Ferns and alpine plants in an ornamental and pictur- 

 esque way, and in a way which is best suited to the habits of 

 each kind of plant ; and this can only be done, not by any 

 attempt to imitate nature or by making concrete and stucco 

 stratified rocks, but by using stones and soil, and taking ad- 

 vantage of sun and shade, north aspect and south , dry places and 

 wet, A'c, according to the kind of plants you wish to grow. If 

 when you take up a stone to put it on to the rockwork are yon 

 to think which is its bed?— did it lie on this side or that? 

 Yon simply make yourself a slave to an idea. Where Ferns 

 and alpine plants grow to the greatest perfection Nature has 

 performed wild freaks and will do so again, and in many a 



