INTRODUCTION. 
glass such unsuspected charms as the delicate fragrance exhaled, 
under these undisturbed conditions, by Sazifraga Burseriana. 
The cultivation of such plants is of the simplest; their pots (keep 
these on the small side) must be quite clean, their soil quite 
wholesome, their drainage open and abundant, their water supply 
constant but never excessive. They should be stood in saucers 
of water when thirsty, instead of receiving their dose from over- 
head. Their drink, too, should be the stored gift of the clouds, 
in the case of all convicted or suspected anti-lime fanatics, rather 
than that of lake or river, in which lime is probably present, 
in proportions, however minute, quite capable of poisoning 
a pot. It must also be remembered incessantly that soil soon 
becomes exhausted ; no plant should be left for more than a year 
without repotting. Primulas, it is to be noted, are especially 
impatient of too long a sojourn in the same soil and pot. On 
the whole, then, while the alpine house demands its pots, and 
the supply-frames necessitate yet more, I am wholly opposed 
to the systematic frame-culture of alpines. They are neither 
appropriate, pleasant, nor permanently happy in such confined 
and unnatural circumstances, and always seem like pining birds 
in cruel and grotesque imprisonment. So much for the uses and 
delights of the cold alpine house, and the undesirability of that 
cold frame cultivation which was our forefathers’ only notion 
of dealing with alpines, and that only in a spirit of prayerful 
despair. The moment, however, that artificial heat, in any form 
or degree, is added to either house or frame, then its whole purpose 
changes completely. It becomes a luxuriant centre of propa- 
gation and germination; it ceases to be a healthy medium for 
the permanent cultivation of alpines. Heat, therefore, may only 
be admitted when your frame or house is meant for the rapid 
increase of your stock by seeds and cuttings, rather than as a 
settled habitation for grown-up plants in pots. 
And now my tale of annotations is as full as I dare make it. 
I will stand no longer between my readers and the stored ocean 
of knowledge in which the following pages will salubriously 
merge him. Against trusting too exclusively to my experiences 
X11 
