216 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
stream shall come Lodoring, to disperse itself in runnels 
over the shoulder, and to leap thence, down a steep 
precipice, into a little lake below. If you are, by some 
monstrous favouritism of the gods, blessed with such a 
golden possibility as this, I will smash the Tenth Com- 
mandment first, and hurl its fragments at your head; 
but I will then be generous and confess that you will 
have the loveliest bog-garden in the country,if you fill 
the open space between your cliffs with stone-chips and 
light soil, surfacing it, too, with larger flakes and debris 
of the mountain limestone. And then, and then, on that 
rock-strewn shoulder, permeated with running moisture, 
incessantly, violently draining downwards, you will plant 
every glorious little bog-plant of the highest Alps and 
Himachal, and they will glory in so delightful a repro- 
duction of their own chosen dwelling-places in the hills. 
Thus, if you are lucky in avoiding the neighbourhood of 
large incongruous features, such as trees, houses, or big 
shrubs, you may possibly attain the illusion of a high 
lonely corner of the mountains—and will, in any case, 
certainly be much closer to it than if you merely have 
your bog at the bottom of a hollow, with copse and 
woodland plants all round. But this cherished dream of 
mine presupposes so many things, as to stand beyond 
realisation by the general run of gardeners. The ordinary 
scheme is good enough, and only less good than the 
best. 
But wherever you have your bog, I advise great atten- 
tion to the surfacing. It is extraordinary to me the way 
gardeners cherish excessive stoniness in big stones (which 
are oppressive and ugly in effect), and utterly neglect the 
beauty and value of small broken chips. I am not now 
talking of the actual moraine-garden, which is too impor- 
tant thus lightly to be dismissed ; but the ordinary rock- 
garden slope or pocket—the flat surface of the bog, are a 
