160 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
other such small delights may have their paradise. And, 
for these, it is best to make the elaborate excavation and 
concrete basin that I have described—not as an absolute 
necessity, but as a safeguard and preliminary precaution, 
which will make them a great deal safer and happier than 
they are otherwise liable to be—besides securing to them 
a suitable, reserved territory of their own, where their 
special convenience is consulted, and from which all the 
profane crowd of larger plants may be held in banish- 
ment. 
And now I will give free rein to my ideal, and will 
conceive myself lord of a vast bog-garden, sloping richly 
away from a high crest of copse and rock to a choice 
flat space for delicacies far below. And my bank is now 
full-fed with fat soil, and its river flows down from the 
upper corner, winding through the valley, but touching 
each bank, even to the crest, with the benign influence 
of its moisture. For, where water flows, thence water 
always climbs, and the banks on either side a stream are 
always so far tinged with damp that they can never 
know drought, and therefore may fairly be included in 
the bog-garden, though their soil, to the touch, is merely 
fresh and cool, even in the driest summer heats. So 
into my happy valley parched Thirst can never enter. 
And now, to take first my choice of big things for the 
banks, what shall I begin to plant ? 
And at once comes up at my call the Queen-race of the 
bog-garden. For, though many and diverse are the dwell- 
ings of the Lilies—though Heldreicht and chalcedonicum 
blaze on the hills of Greece, though tenuifolium takes plea- 
sure in hot, dry, dusty soil, yet, as a race, the Lilies are 
plants of the upper reaches of the bog, delighting in very 
rich, well-drained slopes, kept always cool by the influence 
of water at their feet. Then let the high places of my 
bank be filled with gorgeous auratum, Martagon, pom- 
