INTRODUCTION. 
the blush of its roseate ripples. This is the typical “ rarity ” 
of an alpine ; I know of no species that is rare in number as well 
asin distribution. If a collector happens on one station where its 
specimens are few and far between, he will, of course, leave them 
alone and go on to the next ridge, where he will probably find 
it abounding. Hybrids, however, are often rare in the true sense, 
and here the true collector will take half a clump, or one out of 
three, respecting the rest. Hven here,. however, arises an arguable 
point: What is the precise value of all this cant about original 
stations? What value, other than a purely sentimental one, 
has a tuft of Primula Kellerert sitting alone on a rocky bank of 
Kraxentriger, unvisited from aeon’s end to aeon’s end, and giving 
no pleasure to anybody, except a barren delight to pro- 
fessors in being able to quote it as living there. How incom- 
parably greater a value has it in a chosen place on the rock 
garden, giving not less pleasure to itself but more, growing twice 
the size in a season, and delighting endless crowds, alike of the 
simple and the learned, with its health, its prestige, its rarity, 
and its incomparable flowers, that otherwise, to gratify a sterile 
fad, would have been doomed for ever to waste their sweetness 
on mountain mice and marmots. Parkinson has a very sensible 
remark on the wild tulips; he says that, being removed to our 
gardens, they give more delight than ever to their own naturals. 
Now this appears to me the gist of the whole matter. If there be 
in all the world only one specimen of a species or variety, is it not 
better that it should be where it can give joy to man, rather than 
remain where it can do good to nobody, and merely feed the pride 
of a few people who know its whereabouts, and hug a half- 
sentimental and wholly selfish satisfaction in the monopoly of 
that knowledge? At the same time I myself turn to scorn with 
prudent lips, the falsehood of extremes; and, in any case where 
it was possible, would leave a portion of the original clump ; yet 
at an extreme pinch, if no other choice offered, I should carry my 
principles to their conclusion, and bring home the single crown 
without scruple, confident of merit in doing so, by rendering 
fruitful to many what was heretofore an unseen and barren beauty. 
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