30 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
experiments. Last year I hurled out all the old green- 
house Cyclamens—huge lumping old corms—on to a 
light-soiled bank beneath the shelter of thickly planted 
deciduous honeysuckles. They all lived and continued 
to thrive, though the weather, for the next six weeks, was 
nothing short of appalling. More than a year has passed, 
and it looks as if some of them might yet live awhile. 
This, of course, is a platitude in warm Cornwall, but a 
paradox in frost-swept Yorkshire Alps. And such experi- 
ments cost little; one tries, perhaps, the corpora vilia of 
superfluous plants. And then what is the amazed joy of 
success! In this last autumn I threw away, in a pet, a 
worthless plant of Odontoglossum crispum, vexed at having 
overlooked it when dane of my third-raters a week or 
two before. Frost was ruling at the time, and next day 
I regretted the cowardly brutality of my action. So I 
went and quested for my victim, set on making amends. 
And there, on the frozen grass, I found the dispotted 
Odontoglossum still alive and well. ‘This changed my 
plans; I took it up and planted it in the rockery, in a 
sheltered corner, near the protecting shade of Cistus 
laurifolius. It was an absurd experiment, but I could 
not resist the temptation of trying it. Of course the poor 
thing ultimately died, but I solemanky declare and affirm 
iat: there, in the open, Odontoglossum crispum held out 
for a solid three weeks, during which time rain and 
tempest alternated with bitter ak, and the temperature 
was generally down to goodness knows where at night. 
Of all evergreen flowering shrubs though, for the rock- 
garden, great and small, the enormous race which we call 
Rhododendron (exclusive of Azalea) is the most august. 
Here, again, I am stumped by the impossibility of elimi- 
nating lime from my soil. However, I have induced no 
fewer than three of the Himalyans to thrive—though, 
started as tiny plants, they have not yet flowered. These 
