INTRODUCTION. 
THe MoRAINE 
This is no more than an extreme extension of the chip 
principle, and though it bears the name, has no relation to the 
barren moraines of the glaciers, but rather to the upmost shingle- 
slopes in the highest folds of the mountains, where the loveliest 
and choicest of all their flowers are gathered in the fine loose slides 
of stone, moistened beneath by the rivers of the melting snow. 
And, in cultivation, the “ Moraine ” has often proved the answer to 
problems long unsolved in the management of the more difficult 
alpines, hitherto sadly indocile and intractable in ordinary con- 
ditions. In the moraine they flourish brightly and perennially 
as bay-trees, while their brilliant’ colours are enhanced by the 
lovely groundwork of soft grit shingle upon which they shine. 
There are very few plants to which moraine comes amiss—each 
garden makes a different experience of success for itself. But 
as the moraine spells such salvation and glory for the most diffi- 
cult and glorious of plants, for these it should primarily be 
reserved. 
It is very simply made. Let the ground—for preference in 
some slope between two rocks, to have a natural, shingle-slide 
effect—be excavated to some three feet of depth. Then let 
drainage rubble be laid down as before—with reversed turves 
atop. The remaining two feet (with a perforated water-pipe, if 
possible, running about twelve inches below the surface) are now 
to be filled up with a mixture exceeding in stoniness anything 
used for the banks of the rock-garden. A usual proportion is 
% of soil (4 leaf-mould, } sand) to % of fine chips, in size 
from that of the thumb-nail to that of the little finger. The 
proportion may be varied: 4 of soil to 2 of chips makes a richer 
compound, and 4 soil, $ chips results in a yet more comfortable 
and certain success everywhere. The chips, too, can be indefinitely 
varied: there may be a limestone moraine, with mortar rubble 
mixed, to taste, in the composition ; a granite moraine, from which 
all lime is excluded; sandstone, silurian, and many another form. 
Other soils will, of course, be also tried: blends of peat, of leaf- 
xXxXxXV 
